The facts about Luther

BR 325 .05 1916

O'Hare, Patrick F., 1848-

1926.
The facts about Luther

Cbe facts
JIbotit Eutber

By
Rt. Rev. Mons. Patrick F. 0*Hare, LL.D.

Recior of St. Antonyms Churchy Brooklyn, N. Y.

Author of
"Mass Explained** and *' Devotion to Saint Antony.*'

Preface by the

Rev. Peter Guilday, Ph.D.

Catholic Unt'versityy IVashington, D. C,
Twenty -sixth Thousand

FREDERICK PUSTET & CO.

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NIHIL OBSTAT.

Rev. REMY LAFORT, S. T. D.,

Censor

IMPRIMATUR.

4- JOHN CARDINAL FARLEY,

Archbishop of Nenv York,

New York, July 4, 1916.

Printed in U. S. A.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Copyright. 1916

IM United States and Grbat Britain

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Pref

ace

IT is an accepted conclusion nowadays among the
best students of the Protestant RebelHon of the
sixteenth century that there are "two Luthers — the
Luther of panegyric, of romance, and fiction, and the
Luther of history and fact. The former appears in
the pulpit, in the Sunday school, and in partisan bio-
graphies ; the latter may be discovered from a careful
study of his writings and those of his contemporaries,
but above all from his private letters, of which former
devotees of Luther would only publish what they
thought to his credit, garbling or suppressing the rest."
These words, quoted from a rare little tract on Luther,
written nearly thirty years ago by a Prelate of the
Church, who was one of the foremost Reformation
scholars of that day, may well serve as the keynote of
this present work with its powerful contrasts between
the Luther of fact and the Luther of fiction. They
also sum up the result of all the studies made in the
life and works of Martin Luther since the last great
international celebration of 1883 — the four hundredth
anniversary of his birth at Eisleben. There are many
w^ho still remember the interest and zeal evidenced by
the Protestant churches throughout Christendom, when
that fourth centenary was given a world-wide recogni-
tion. It was a celebration with far-reaching effects ; with
fatal effects, indeed, for the hero-worship so dear to
Luther's followers. In Germany, especially, scholars
and publishers vied with one, another in acclaiming
him as the man to whom the modern world owed
most, if not all, of its present liberty. He was hailed
as the restorer of the truer evangelical life, as the
spiritual liberator of the human race; and from that
time down to the present, no ordinary reader has been
able to keep pace with the output of Lutheran liter-
ature.

Probably no man ever lived about whom so much
has been written as Luther; but it is from the last

notable Luther celebration of 1883, that we can date
the foremost works which have appeared on the sub-
ject. To-day no important source on Luther's life
and works remains unpublished. The Weimar Edition
of his works — the typical edition, began to appear in
1883. Most of the Protestant authors, from whose
works Monsignor O'Hare takes his quotations,
have written since that date — Kostlin, Kawerau,
Paulsen, Kolde, Hagen, Hausrath, Beard and
others, have all written under the impulse of the
Luther revival of thirty odd years ago. Throughout
the whole period of this activity, the Luther of fiction
and the Luther of historic fact have come boldly into
conflict, and scholars know with what deplorable re-
sults for the heresiarch of Protestantism. But the
ordinary man-in-the-street, for whom this volume is
particularly designed, is still unaware of these revela-
tions. Throughout the whole period of this activity, the
Luther of fiction has been relegated to the realm of
the unhistorical. Scholars can no longer satisfy them-
selves with the general platitude that the greatest
achievement of the race to which he belonged and the
most important event in history is the Protestant
Rebellion of the sixteenth centur}\ We can no longer
hold in the face of what modern scholarship has brought
to light since 1883 that Luther's rebellion was essen-
tially the beginning of a new religious movement. The
Protestant Rebellion marked no new stage in human
progress ; it did not close the eyes of a dying medieval
Church ; it marked no new dawn of the modern era.
Protestant scholars of repute no longer hold out to
their disciples the old misconceptions that the Rebel-
lion in Germany secured greater purity and spirituality
in religion. It did not contribute, as we have been
told so often, to the elevation of the laity and to the
advancement of woman. It did not fashion a separa-
tion of secular from ecclesiastical power. It gave no
extraordinary impulse to literature or to science. It
did not establish liberty of conscience. In a word, it
had nothing in its principles or methods, which was to
ennoble our modern civilization.

These truths have been self-evident to scholars the
past twenty-five years. Like all corporate bodies built

on error, the Lutheran Church of the si^tteenth cen-
tury has fared badly under the piercing light of mod-
ern research, and Luther himself has become more
and more remote from all those characteristics of
modem civilization to which his followers lay claim
as the legacy of his apostasy. Protestant scholars in
America, England, and Germany have made plain that
Luther's idea of God is repugnant to our natural feel-
ings. Since the publication of Denifle's works, the
suite of events in Luther's apostasy has had to be
changed ; and we see at last that the furthermost point
backwards to which his cleaveage from the Church
can be traced is not opposition to the Papacy but the
false idea which seems to have haunted him into
obsession — his total impotency under temptation. It
was this negation of the moral value of human actions,
this denial of one's ability to overcome sin, which led
to his famous doctrine on the worthlessness of good
works. The only hope he had was in a blind reliance
on God, whose Son, Jesus Christ, had thrown around
him the cloak of His own merits. From this starting-
point, it was facilis descensus Averni. Opposition to
all good works, and in particular to monastic regula-
tions and to Indulgences, led to opposition to author-
ity, episcopal and papal. Germany was politically ripe
for revolt at that moment, and the union of the Empire
and the Papacy made it impossible to distinguish the
victims, once the national spirit was aroused. That
Luther aided, and aided powerfully, in this opposition
to the Holy Roman Empire of both Church and State
is undeniable ; but what Protestant scholars have de-
nied in no uncertain terms is the long litany of
triumphs accredited to the Luther of fiction. His
greatest work — the translation of the Bible into Ger-
man— is openly called a plagiarism. The claim that
he is the father of popular education is ridiculed by
leading Protestant historians. His economic views are
considered retrogressive even for his own time. The
assertion that he is the founder of the modern State
is denied categorically by his latest non-Catholic bio-
grapher, who tells us that he preferred despotism to
democracy, and that he never doubted the right and
duty of the State to persecute for heresy. The Luther

of fiction is being more and more obscured by the
Luther of fact, but it takes time for the conclusions
of scholars to reach the multitude, and with very little
limitation the old shibboleths of the middle nineteenth
century are being repeated to-day in Lutheran pulpits,
Sunday-schools, and partisan biographies.

We have reached another century-mark in the his-
tory of the Protestant Church. Four hundred years
ago, on All Saints' Eve — the Hallov^^ E'en of our days
— the young Professor of Sacred Scripture in the
University of Wittenberg attached ninety-five proposi-
tions, or theses, to the University bulletin-board on
the portals of the old Castle Church of the town.
Historians and theologians, both Catholics and Pro-
testants, have viewed that act in many ways. To some
it was a defiance hurled at the immoral conditions of
Europe, a gage thrown down at last, after several cen-
turies of spiritual conflict, for Rome to pick up or to
be branded as a cowardly antagonist of German as-
pirations, of German love and devotion for pure doc-
trine, for pure moral living. To others, it was only an
incident — an incident, it is true, which was to set
Europe ablaze within five years — but still an incident,
which might have been seen and soon forgotten, had
not the temporal condition of Europe been ready for
the outbreak which followed it. Both siiles admit that
the Christian faith had then fallen upon evil days, but
both sides have since torn away every vestige of hero-
worship from the militant figure of the man who cen-
tered Europe, political and religious, around himself at
the Diet of Worms, three years afterwards. Both
sides have yielded much for and against him in the
discussions, the polemics, the attacks, the accusations,
which have swirled around him since. The Protestant
religious world, although deprived of valuable
auxiliaries in the Sturm und Drang of the conflict
which is now throwing the world into confusion, will
not allow this Fourth Centenary of Luther's Theses
to pass without an attempt to rehabilitate their great
hero, despite the results of modern scholarship.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that were it not
for such a work as this, the general reading public —
both Catholic and Protestant — might have suffered

this rehabilitation without protest; but Monsignor
O'Hare has thrown a briage over the chasm which now
separates the Luther of 1917 from the Luther of
1883, and the contrast is so prominent that his con-
clusions cannot be ignored. The reader is brought in
these pages into c, close, intimate relation with Luther's
friends and opponents, and every statement is based
on the most reliable authorities in the Protestant school
of historical science. The whole gamut of the apos-
tate's life is here described in a calm, impartial man-
ner which permits no gainsaying. There are many
hideous scenes in Martin Luther's life; there are scenes
of coarseness, vulgarity, obscenity and degrading im-
morality which can never be forgiven because of a
''rugged peasant nature." The man stands revealed
as the very opposite of all that Protestantism has
claimed for him. But the reader may take up this
work with the assurance, that here there is no unfair
attack upon the Founder of Protestantism. It is not
with a spirit of bitterness or bigotry that Monsignor
O'Hare describes the real Luther. So long as the
Luther of fiction exists in popular Protestant literature,
there can be no common friendly ground for the proper
appraisal of the Rebellion of 15 17. And no man,
whether he be a Protestant or a Catholic, who has the
love of Christ in his heart, can look on with indiffer-
ence, when there is question of an irenic state of mind
en religious problems, or when there is a possibility of
a union between the two leading religions of the West-
ern world. There is no doubt that the religious prob-
lem to-day is still the Luther Problem, and since almost
every statement of those religious doctrines, which are
opposed to Catholic moral teaching, find their authori-
zation in the theology of Martin Luther, every Cath-
olic should acquaint himself with the life-story of the
man, whose followers can never explain away the
anarchy of that immoral dogma: "Be a sinner, and
sin boldly ; but believe more boldly still !"

Peter Guilday, Ph. D.

Catholic University of America,
Washington, D. C.
September fifth, 19 16.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Pages

Preface 3-7

I. Luther — His Friends and Oppo-
nents 9-29

11. Luther Before His Defection . . 30- 64

HI. Luther and Indulgences .... 65- 98

IV. Luther and Justification .... 99-136

V. Luther on the Church and the

Pope 137-182

VI. Luther and the Bible 183-219

VII. Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion . 220-260

VIII. Luther on Free-Will and Liberty

OF Conscience 261-311

IX. Luther as a Religious Reformer , 312-367

CHAPTER I.
Luther: His Friends and Opponents.

THIS modest volume is issued to present to the pub-
lic at large some of the most prominent and im-
portant features in the life and career of Martin
Luther, the founder of Protestantism. We wish to
declare in the beginning that this little work makes no
pretention to either originality or scholarship; neither
does it claim to set forth in its pages anything th'^.t is
not already well-known and fully authenticated in the
life of Luther and the development of the new system
of religion he gave to the world. Abler and more com-
petent writers have long since covered the whole
ground. Learned and distinguished historians like
Janssen, Denifle, Grisar, and many others, have painted
with masterly accuracy the real picture of the reformer
from material supplied for the most part by his own
acknowledged writings. These celebrated authors have
practically pronounced the last word on the protagonist
and champion of Protestantism, and there seems to be
slight justification for the publication of a new work
on the old subject.

Whilst we recognize all this to be true, we feel
that we may be pardoned for attempting to tell anew,
but in greater brevity and directness, the salient and
more striking features connected with the apostate
monk of Wittenberg and his religious movement, be-
cause there are a large number in the community, who
in the hurry and high pressure of modern life have not
the time to examine the ponderous and exhaustive
volumes of the authors alluded to above, and who, more-
over, have not the means to secure these works, rnuch
as they might desire to do so, on account of prohibitive
prices. Taking all this into consideration, we believe
we will be excused for intruding on a field that has
already been well covered, ard for presenting to the
general public a plain, but well-authenticated sketch of

10 The Facts About Luther

the man who in the sixteenth century inaugurated a
movement which bears the name of "Reformation"
and caused a large and fearful defection from the
Church of which he was a member, and to which the
bulk of mankind adhered all through the centuries
from its establishment by Jesus Christ. In treating of
this historical character whose startling influence was
exercised on his own country and on the world at
large, we have no intention to wound the convictions
and sensibilities of any in the community who may
disagree with us. Our aim is to tell the truth about
the standard-bearer of the Reformation, and of this
no one should be afraid, for truth and virtue triumph
by their own inherent beauty and power. The poet
aptly sings :

"Truth hath such a face and such a mien.
As to be loved needs only to be seen."

In dealing with Luther it is well to remember that
students of history have given him such attention as
has been accorded to few men of any age, and about
fewer still have they expressed such v/idely divergent
views. His friends insist that he was a model of virtue
and possessed eminent qualities which in every way
made him worthy of his position as a religious reformer,
while his opponents openly denounce him and in-
sist that in his own day he was known as a ''trickster
and a cheat," one whose titanic pride, unrestrained
temper, and lack of personal dignity utterly unfitted
him to reform the Church and the age.

To his followers the name and memory of Luther
are objects of religious veneration. They have for the
last four centuries surrounded him with such an aura
of flattery and pedantry, that he is looked upon as one
of the glories of Germany, nay, the foremost figure in
their Hall of Immortals. By dint of minatory itera-
tion, his admirers have been brought to believe that
"he is the precious gift of God to the nation." Lutheran
writers from Mathesius to Kostlin have invariably filled
the German mind with all that reverent love could
conjure up for their hero's justification and exalta-
tion. To call in question the powers of the Reformer

Luther : His Friends and Opponents 11

or deny the divine mission of the Reformation was
ever considered blasphemous and unpatriotic.

The opponents of Luther, on the contrary, stoutly
maintain that his greatness was taken on trust and that
the writers alluded to in the preceding paragraph have
invariably, with a fatuous blindness mistaken for
patriotism, fed and nourished the German mind, not
on the real Luther, but on a Luther glossed over and
toned down with respectful admiration and conjured
under the influence of partisan-colored traditions in-
tended to prevent him from being catalogued in his
proper page in the world's history. Reverential ten-
derness keyed to its highest pitch cannot, however,
they claim, eflface the clearly etched lineaments of the
man of flesh and blood, the man of moods and im-
pulses, of angularities and idiosyncracies which dom-
inated his career and singled him out as a destructive
genius unfitted to carry out any kind of reformation
either in Church or State.

In discussing Luther and his religious movement
we feel at liberty to say that many, both in the ranks
of his friends and of his opponents, have perhaps
at times indulged in too great a display of feeling
and exaggeration. It would help considerably to cool
down the bitterness aroused among all parties did they
honestly endeavor to discover for themselves the find-
ings and conclusions of non-partisan writers on the
delicate but interesting question. Wiser council
and juster appreciation would inevitably reward the
searchers after truth, the whole truth and nothing but
the truth. Of these unbiased writers, many of whom
are Protestants, there is no scarcity. They have been
delving into the pages of history to find out the real
Luther and they have not been afraid to tell in the in-
terest of truth what sort of a man he actually was.
These scholarly and reliable authors assert that Luther
unquestionably possessed certain elements of greatness.
They admit that he was a tireless worker, a forceful
writer, a powerful preacher, and an incomparable
master of the German language. They credit him with
a keen knowledge of human nature and of the trend of

12 The Facts About Luther

the world of his day. They allege, moreover, that he was
capable of taking advantage ot everything that favored
his schemes of yoking to his own chariot all the forces
that were then at work to injure and oppose the ancient
and time-honored religion of Catholics. But whatever
else of praise these writers bestow on the man, it is
equally clear and beyond question that they are all
agreed in declaring that Luther possessed a violent,
despotic and uncontrolled nature. Many of these
writers, although Protestants and not friendly to the
Catholic Church, have not been afraid to tell their co-
religionists that the rights Luther assumed to himself
in the matter of liberty of conscience, he unhesitatingly
and imperiously denied to all who differed from him,
as many specific cases overwhelmingly confirm. His
will and his alone, they declare, he dogmatically set up
as the only standard he wished to be recognized, fol-
lowed, and obeyed. In their historical investigations
they discovered many other shortcomings in the char-
acter of the man unbecoming in one who claimed to
be a reformer, and in their love of truth and real
scholarship they have honestly acknowledged that
there was something titanic, unnatural and diabolical
in the founder of Protestantism.

One of these fearless writers was the Protestant
Professor Seeberg of Berlin. He was no friend of
the Catholic Church, but his deep study of the man
and his movement forced him to say : ''Luther strode
through his century like a demon crushing under his
feet what a thousand years had venerated." The same
author further remarks: "In him dwelt 'The Super-
human,' or, in Neitzsche's Philosophy, the 'Ueber-
mensch,' who dwells 'beyond moral good and evil.' "

In November 1883 the English Protestant Bishop
Bewick applied to Luther the epithets "foul-mouthed"
and "scurrilous."

In the December "Century" issued in 1900, Augus-
tine Birrell, a distinguished English Protestant writer,
declared that "Luther was not an ideal sponsor of a
new religion; he was a master of billingsgate and the
least saintly of men. At times, in reading Luther, one

Luther : His Friends axd Opponents 13

is drawn to say to him what Herrick so frankly says
of himself;

'Luther, thou art too coarse to love/

"Had Luther been a brave soldier of fortune his
coarseness might have passed for a sign of the times ;
but one likes leaders of religion to be religious ; and it
is hard to reconcile coarseness and self-will, two lead-
ing; notes of Luther's character, with even rudimentary
religion. To want to be your own pope is a sign of the
heresiarch, not of the Christian."

To the testimony of Professor Seeberg and Mr.
Birrell we desire to add another illustration of the
change which has come over the minds of men regard-
ing the German reformer. Licentiate Braun, in a con-
tribution written for the "Evangelische Kirchenzeit-
ung," March 30, 1913, p. 195, tells in all honesty and
straight- forwardness, how with strips from the skin
of his own co-religionists Protestant theologians have
pieced together not a fictitious, but a genuinely reliable
account of the life of Luther. This able Protestant
theologian writes as follows:

"How small the Reformer has become according to
the Luther studies of our own Protestant investigators !
How his merits have shrivelled up ! We believed that
we owed to him the spirit of toleration and liberty of
conscience. Not in the least! We recognized in his
translation of the Bible a masterpiece stamped with the
impress of originality — we may be happy now if it is
not plainly called a 'plagiarism !' We venerated in him
the father of the popular school system — a purely
'fictitious greatness' which we have no right to claim
for him! We imagined that we found in Luther's
words splendid suggestions for a rational treatment of
poverty and that a return to him would bring us back
to the true principles of charity — but the laurels do
not belong to him, they must be conceded to the Cath-
olic Church ! We were dcl'p^lited to be assured that this
great man possessed an insight into national economics
marvelous for his day — but 'unbiased' investigation
forces the confession that there were many indications
of retrogressive tendencies in his economic views!"

14 The Facts About Luther

"Did we not conceive of Luther as the founder of
the modern State? Yet in all that he said upon this
subject there was nothing of any value which was at
all new; as for the rest, by making the king an 'abso-
lute Patriarch' he did not in the least improve upon the
coercive measures employed by the theocracy of the
Middle Ages."

"Just think of it, then, all these conclusions come to
us from the pen of Protestant theologians ! Reliable
historians give book and page for them. What is still
more amazing, all these Protestant historians continue
to speak of Luther in tones of admiration, in spite of
the admissions which a 'love of truth' compels them
to make. Looking upon the 'results' of their work thus
gathered together, we cannot help asking the question:
What, then, remains of Luther?"

This question, remember, is put, not by a Catholic,
but by an eminent Protestant theologian. It is an im-
portant question and deserves serious consideration.
Who will answer it? The bigot and the preacher of
"The Gospel of Hate" resent the question and like all
enemies of truth they refuse to give it consideration.
They hate the light and close their eyes to its illumina-
tion. Many of them hate truth as a business. Their
books and their lectures bring them reputation or
money. Like Judas, they ask, ''What will you give
me ?" For a price the low, the vile, the false feed the
fires that burn in the hearts of certain fanatics. Unlike
these are the Seebergs, the Birrells and the Brauns.
They are not afraid of the truth. They sought it with
unbiased minds and once they discovered it they boldly
communicated their findings to the world. Ask them
the question : Who and what Luther really was, and
their answer is straight-forward, direct and unhesitat-
ing. They tell that nothing remains but an unpleasant
memory of the man who divided the Church of God,
and who, destitute of constructive genius, depraved in
manners and in speech, falsely posed as a reformer
sent by God. The investigations they made in the field
of reliable history convinced them that the father of
Protestantism appeared to fill the world with light, but

Luther: His Friends and Opponents i^

it was only the light of a passing meteor consuming
and destroying itself in its fall. To the enemies of
truth these scholarly researches are most embarrassing
and disappointing. As a distinguished writer puts it,
"they pluck jewel after jewel from Luther's crown
and make the praises chanted to him by the ranters of
all times sound hollow in honest ears attuned to truth."
All impartial history proclaims that Luther had very
few, if any, of the qualifications that men naturally
expect to find in one who poses as a religious reformer.
The "Man of God," "the supernatural spirit," in which
role he is represented by partisan writers, Luther was
only in romance and myth. He attempted reformation
and ended in deformation. Unfitted for the work he
had outlined for himself, his ungovernable transports,
riotous proceedings, angry conflicts and intemperate
controversies frustrated his designs at every turn.
His teaching, like his behavior, was full of inconsist-
encies, and his contempt of all the accepted forms of
human right and of all authority, human and divine,
could not but result in lamentable disaster. His wild
pronouncements wrecked Germany, wrecked her intel-
lectually, morally, politically. The havoc wrought di-
rectly or indirectly by him is almost without example
in history. The outcome in the century following was
that the nation became a mere geographical term and
was thrown back two hundred years in development,
in culture and progress. History presents no apology
for the unbridled jealousy, fierce antagonism, and un-
remitting opposition that marked the career of this
man toward the Church of his forefathers. He was a
revolutionist, not a reformer. The true reformer re-
stores society to its primitive purity ; the revolutionist
violently upsets the constitution of society, putting
something else in its place. While pretending to reform,
he wrote and preached not for but against good works,
and the novel teaching was eagerly accepted by the
unthinking and bore those awful fruits of which the
historians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
have painted the sorrowful picture. He rent asunder
the unity of the Church till, alongside of the one true

16 The Facts About Luther

Church, there have arisen hundreds of warring sects;
nay, there are those who extol him as the founder of
a religion, forgetting that this is his greatest shame,
for, if he founded a religion it is not the Christian re-
ligion established by Christ fifteen hundred years be-
fore. No wonder he went down in ignominious defeat
and that the Church he unnecessarily attacked and
relentlessly endeavored to destroy remained as the
central figure of all Christendom to proclaim alike to
the humblest peasant and the greate::t savant its Divine
mission and heavenly authority to teach men the ways
of eternal life.

All this may sound very strange, and may, perhaps,
shock a great many non-Catholics ; but they must
kindly remember that they were taught that the subject
under consideration had but one side, and that inher-
ited prejudices prevented them from examining the
facts and finding the truth they really love. The light
they needed was kept from them and they were in-
nocently led to believe that Luther was justified in his
defection from the Church he once loved and de-
fended, but which he afterwards disgraced by a notori-
ously wicked and scandalous life. They heard him
praised for what ignorant men called his "robust
Christianity," which was akin to Judas's betiTal of the
Master, and they believed this when they lauded him
as an ''apostle of liberty" in spite of the fact, as history
shows, that he v/as one of the most intolerant of men.
They have heard the anti-Catholic of every shade of
character rake-up the muck of history, vilify the clergy,
hold up nuns as the wickedest of women, exploit the
Pope as "Anti-Christ" and the "Man of Sin" ; resort,
in a word, to every known means of ridicule and mis-
representation to depict the spotless Spouse of Christ
as the "great harlot of the Apocalypse," "the mother of
fornications and the abominations of the earth." They
have heard the wild, monstrous and even impossible
statements of the lying and slanderous in the com-
munity, whose only aim is to advance the nefarious
and diabolical work of inflaming the passions of the
rabble and to keep alive the blind, prejudiced, and irra-

Luther: His Friends and Opponents 17

tional discrimination against everything Catholic. The
pity of it all is, that, in this day of enlightenment, many
who would be ashamed to listen to professional char-
latans in any other avocation of life, will think that
they are doing a "service to God" by giving a willing
ear and swallowing down without a qualm the silly,
senseless, and unwarranted reproaches which unscru-
pulous haranguers, paid hirelings, and vile calumni-
ators unblu shingly and without the vestige of proof
urge against the religion which Christ established for
all time till the consummation of the world, and which
history tells has civilized the peoples and the nations.
But, whilst this is all true, we feel that the most
generous allowance must be made for the Church's
enemies and their deluded followers. The fact is they
cannot help their antagonism and distrust, for they
have been brought up from infancy to loathe the Cath-
olic Church, whose histor}% they were made to believe
by their false teachers, was distinguished for nothing
save bloodshed, crime, and fraud. Their anti-Catholic
views and prejudices and hostilities had their origin in
the so-called Reformation period, and since that time
all Protestant "mankind descending by ordinary genera-
tion" have come into the world with a mentality biased,
perverted, and prejudiced. They and their fathers
have been steeped and nurtured in opposition, and in
most cases without meaning to be unjust they feel in-
stinctively a strong and profound antipathy to every-
thing that savors of Catholicity. Ministers and lec-
turers and tracts, every channel of propagating error,
bigotry, and misrepresentation, are used to preserve,
circulate and keep alive popular hatred and distrust of
the one true Church of Christ which, all who have any
sense should know, is indestructible. How men in the
possession of their wits can engage in the useless and
vain task of attempting to displace and destroy a God-
founded religion, established for all time and for all
Deoples, surpasses all understanding. The fact never-
theless remains that many, unfortunately for thern-
!^elves, are obsessed with an insane hatred of Catholi-
cism and in the exuberance of an enthusiasm akin

18 The Facts About Luther

to that of a Celsus, a Porphy^, and a Julian, they
treat the pubHc to a campaign of abuse and vilification
of the Church which is a disgrace to themselves and a
violation of all Christian teaching. All these and many
other influences at work in the world to destroy true
Christianity tend to bind the opponents of the Church
with iron bonds to their present inherited convictions,
and hence they hate the Church because they do not
know her in all her beauty and truthfulness. How
could it be otherwise with them ? Would we ourselves
have been any better under the same conditions ?

Catholics expect the Church, which Christ estab-
lished and organized for all time, to be misunderstood,
maligned, ill-treated, pursued, persecuted, hated by the
world. Her founder put the mark of the Cross on her
when He said : "If they have persecuted Me, they will
also persecute you" (St. John xv, 20). In every
age the Catholic Church, which is the only one of the
vast number of pretending claimants to Divine origin
of which Christ's prediction is true, has had to suffer
persecution from the enemies of order and truth, who,
if they could, would wipe her from the face of the
earth. This, however, they have not been able to ac-
complish, nor will they be able at any future time, for
God ordained the Church to remain forever in her
integrity, clothed with all the attributes He gave her in
the beginning. Divinity stamped indestructibility upon
the brow of the Church, and though destined to be
assailed always she will never be overcome by her
enemies. Catholics know that Christ watches over the
survival of the Church, and hence, in this day when
the vast army of the ignorant and the rebellious rise
up to check her development and stop her progress,
they fear not, happen what will, for they are confident
that, as the sun will rise to-morrow and the next day
and so on to the end of the world, so will the Master
ever fulfill His promise concerning the Church, pre-
serving her amid storm and sunshine till time is no
more. When will the enemy realize that it is too late
in the day to overthrow the Church which has stood

Luther: His Friends and Opponents 19

the test of centuries and which has been accepted,
loved and admired by the best minds of all the ages?

Catholics naturally feel indignant at the vilification,
abuse and misrepresentation to which their ancient and
world-wide religion is constantly subjected, but they
are charitable and lenient in their judgment towards
all who wage war against them. They are considerate
with their opponents and persecutors because they
realize that these are victims of a long standing and in-
herited prejudice, intensified by a lack of knowledge of
what the Catholic Church really upholds and teaches.
Even as the Church's Founder prayed the Heavenly
Father to forgive those who nailed Him to the cross
because they knew not what they did, so do His fol-
lowers, with malice to none but with charity to all,
pray for those who oppose the spread of the Kingdom
of God on earth because they do not realize to the full
that, in despising the Church, they despise Him who
founded her to be the light of the world. Most of
the Church's enemies are to be greatly pitied, for they
have never been taught the significant lesson that the
man-made system of religion they hold or adhere to
is false, an offense and an apostacy in the eyes of God,
who despises heresy and Who warned His followers
to be on guard against every teacher not commissioned
by Him to announce Divine truth. Of all this they are
unaware. They know nothing of the Church they
malign, abuse and vilify. They are ignorant of her
history, of her organization, of her constitution, of her
teaching, of her mission and her place in the world.
They know her not, and many of them, otherwise
honest but nurtured in opposition, are led to hate what
with divine light they would come to admire, love,
and embrace.

The general ignorance that prevails in regard to the
Catholic Church is most regrettable. This ignorance,
however, is only surpassed by the lack of knowledge
manifested by the maligners of the Catholic Chnrch
regarding their own peculiar system of belief. They
are ever reac^y to criticise the Catholic Church, of which
they know little or nothing, and yet when they are

J^O The Facts About Luther

asked to give an intelligent account of their own sys-
tem of belief they are unable to reply in such a way
as to appeal to the honest searcher after truth. Ask
some of the preachers of the "Gospel of Hate" to de-
scribe their own religion, presuming, of course, that
they have a religion. Ask them to give you the real
story of the origin of the word and the meaning of the
system embodied in the term "Protestantism." Ask
them to tell you what was there in the teaching of
Luther that demanded his expulsion from the Catholic
Church. Ask them to tell you of the pride of intellect
which caused Luther to refuse to hear and submit to
the Church of Jesus Christ. Ask them by what author-
ity did an ex-communicated man like Luther establish
a system of religion in opposition to the one organized
by Christ and with which He said "He would remain
all days even to the consummation of the world." Ask
them to tell you the difference between Christ's teach-
ing and that of Luther. Ask them to tell you what
was Luther's conception of religion, why did he^^decry
the necessity of good works and declare it to be the
right of every man to interpret the Scriptures accord-
ing to his own individual conception. Ask them to tell
you why did Luther one day proclaim the binding force
of the Commandments and the next declare they were
not obligatory on Christian observance. Ask them to
tell you by what authority did Luther approve of
adultery, favor concubinage and sanction the bigamy
of Philip of Hesse. Ask them to tell you why Luther
advocated freedom of conscience and at the same time
compelled all to submit to his will and dictation. Ask
them is the Protestantism of to-day the same as Luther
fathered and what are the changes from the original
teachings it has undergone during the last four hun-
dred years. Ask them to tell you of the varied exist-
ence and constantly shifting position of Protestantism,
to give you the names of its many contending bodies
which have been tossed about by every wind of relig-
ious speculation and which are still subject to ever-
lasting driftins^. Ask them to point out to you the
difference noticeable between the old and the new

Luther: His Friends and Opponents 21

Protestantism. Ask them could they certify that the
original opinions of the sect are held in respect in
modern times. Ask them would they affirm that the
father of Protestantism, were he in their midst to-day,
set the seal of his approbation on the myriad variations
and evolutions which have affected his own false and
individualistic doctrinal expositions. Ask them how
does all this fit in with the teaching of St. Paul, the
greatest of the Church's converts, who, putting the
query, Is Christ divided ? replied in the ever memorable
words: "One faith, one baptism, one Lord, and one
Master of all."

These questions are pertinent and in all fairness
they should be answered by those who make it a busi-
ness to wage war on the Mother Church. If the ene-
mies of the Church are honest, God-fearing men they
will not shirk their bounden duty in a matter so grave
and important. Until they have settled the disorders
and contentions everywhere existing in their own Pro-
testant households, we think they should in charity,
cease their attacks on the Church which, as the ages
have testified, cannot be displaced or destroyed. In
the meantime, let them honestly probe the issue to its
depths and in prayer and study seek the truth that
frees, vivifies, and saves. Earnest and sincere investi-
gation will make it surprisingly evident that only the
shell of Protestantism remains. All honest inquiry
will show that its origin is of the earth and decline it
must. The name it bears designates it as a human
institution and history proves that it is nothing more.
From its thousands of deluded followers in the six-
teenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, we see
to-day but a handful left to testify to its failure. The
newspapers told us recently that the exodus of Prus-
sians from the ranks of the State Church is wholesale
and that a similar defection is daily going on in Eng-
land and in this country. Protestantism, as a system
of religion, is undeniably dying out. It has unfortu-
nately prepared the way for the monster Agnosticism
or Rationalism which stares us to-day in all its horrible
shapes and forms.

22 The Facts About Luther

But to return to Luther. What about him? What
do the vast bulk of non-CathoHcs know about the man
who reviled and hated and cursed the Church of his
fathers more than any other mortal ever has done?
Must not the great majority of our separated brethren
admit they know absolutely nothing at first hand about
the man? Beyond his name and his defection from
the Mother Church they are in ignorance of his false
doctrinal views and depraved manner of life. This
side of his work and character is carefully concealed
from their vision, and, with a childlike innocence that
disarms wrath, they believe their lea-lers and guides in
religion who know the man no better than themselves
when in pulpit and on platform they hold him up to
view wreathed in a halo of glory and sanctity, and
proclaim him a "Reformer of Christ's Church," "an
apostle of liberty," "an enlightener of the people," "a
destroyer of the Papacy," etc., etc. Most Protestants
do not study the career and work of their hero inde-
pendently for themselves, nor determine to find out
the truth from the proper sources, and, as might be
expected, it is easy for them, congenial and pleasant,
to believe their false guides when they heap unmerited
titles on the man, who more than any before or since
his day was what St. Paul designates a "lawless one"
and a contemner of constituted authority. Did they
read reliable historians and learn something of his
perverse principles, false teaching, unscrupulous men-
dacity, coarse and indecent language, they would not
for long hold his memory in honor and continue t'leir
connection with the false system of religion which he
founded without either warrant or authority.

It is no difficult matter, as all educated Protestants
know, to show that the reformation Luther contem-
plated was a very strange one, for according to the
open avowal of its author it led to the utter demoraliza-
tion of its followers. Almost from the beginning of
his movement he was disgusted on account of the little
change for the better his preachments wrought in the
(ives of his adherents and with each succeeding year,
he expressed his disappointment in the bitterest terms.

Luther: His Friends and Opponents 23

"Unfortunately," he says, "it is our daily experience,
that now under the Gospel (his) the people entertain
greater and bitterer hatred and envy and are worse
with their avarice and money-grabbing than before
under the Papacy." (Walch XIII, 2195.) 'The
people feel they are free from the bonds and fetters
of the Pope, but now they want to get rid also of the
Gospel and of all the laws of God." (Walch XIV, 195. )
^'Everybody thinks that Christian liberty and licen-
tiousness of the flesh are one and the same thing, as if
now everybody was allowed to do what he wants."
(Tischr. i, 180.) ^Townsfolk and peasants, men and
women, children and servants, princes, magistrates and
subjects, are all going to the devil." (Erl. 14, 389.)
"If we succeed in expelling one devil, he immediately is
replaced by seven others who are much worse. We
can then expect that after having driven away the
monks, we shall see arise a race seven times worse
than the former." (Erl. XXXVI, 411.) "Avarice,
usury, debauchery, drunkenness, blasphemy, lying and
cheating are far more prevalent now than they were
under the Papacy. This state of morals brings general
discredit on the Gospel and its preachers, as the people
say, if this Gospel were true, the persons professing it
would be more pious." (Erl. I, 192.)

We could fill a large volume with Luther's words
describing the frightfiil corruption that followed upon
the announcement of his new gospel, but we have given
enough for the present to show that the so-called re-
former was not unaware of the practical effect on the
masses in his own day of his wild pronouncements.
From his own lips, then, we learn of the utter failure
of his so-called reformation movement. What else
might he expect? Did he not sow the wind? Why
should he not reap the whirlwind? Wherein, then,
lies a reason to honor this destructive genius, and why
should men of sense continue to entrust the interests
of their immortal souls to his self-assumed leadership?

It is, moreover, no difficult matter,' as all well in-
formed Protestants know, to demonstrate that Luther,

24 The Facts About Luther

German as he was to the core, in speaking of his native
land used the vilest and most brutal language. Many
know in a general way that Luther was in the habit of
using rather hard words, to put it mildly, but few know
how far he was capable of going. He was reckless to the
border of irresponsible rashness, blunt to the exclusion
of every qualm of delicacy, audacious to the scorn of
every magnanimous restraint, coarse beyond the power
of reproducible Anglo-Saxon and lubricous to a
degree that pales Rabelaisian foulness. His unbridled
tongue did not spare even his own country and his own
people. In speech and in writing he unblushingly de-
scribed the Teutonic race as "brutes and pigs," and he
called the nation "a bestial race," "a sow," "a de-
bauched people." "eiven over to all kinds of vice."
Here are some of his savings: "We profligate Ger-
mans are abominable hogs." "You pigs, hounds, ran-
ters, you irrational asses!" "Our German nation are
a wild, savage nation, half devils, half men." (Walch
XX, 1014. lOTS. 1633.) In many pages of his writ-
ings he complains that "the German peonle are seven
times worse since they embraced the Reformation."
When one ponders over the description Luther gives
of his native land and its people it is difficult to believe
that^ there existed in his soul the faintest spark of
patriotism or love of country. Compare his language
with that of St. Paul, who was a real reformer, and
note the difference. This great convert and distinguished
Apostle, speaking of those he won to Christ, calls
them his "dearly beloved brethren" and then proclaims
them "my joy and my crown." TPhil. iv, i.) On an-
other occasion, referring to the fruits of his apostolic
labors, he says to the Catholics of Thessalonica : "You
became followers of us and of the Lord ... so that you
were made a pattern to all that believe in Macedonia
and in Achaja." (1. Thess. i, 6. 7.) Which of these,
thmk you, v/as the true patriot and the true reformer?
^ When our non-Catholic brethren thoroughly con-
si-^er the vile, intemperate and disgusting language
which v*^as habitual with Luther and weigh well the

Luther : His Friends and Opponents 25

opprobrious names he hnried at the race of his fore-
fathers, how in all honesty can they give a willing ear
to the praise of one so coarse and brutal and continue
their association with a sect which its own founder,
consumed with piiie and hate and despair, pronounced
a lamentable failure?

There are riany strict non-Catholics to-day, who
are, as a rule, honest, and moral people. God forbid
that we should offend or cause the slightest pain to
them, but in the interest of truth we beg leave to re-
mind them that it is high time for them to know that
they have lived as regards Luther too long on legends
and do not realize what sort of man he was. Luther
when living spared not Catholicity nor the Papacy,
To-day many of his adherents are close imitators of
his violence and opposition. We must be pardoned
for mildly but fearlessly resenting the vilification and
misrepresentation to which the Mother Church has for
four hundred years been unnecessarily subjected.
Luther was the cause of it all and ignorance among
the rank and file of his sympathizers has played a
most important part in perpetuating opposition to the
one true Church of Christ.

To promote charity and bring about a better under-
standing among all, it behooves every serious man to
know this character for what he was and to learn
that he has absolutely no claim to any consideration
as a heaven-commissioned agent, as even an ordinary
"reformer" or "spiritual leader," or as in any respect
a man above and ahead of the frailties of his age.
Non-Catholics should in all fairness read carefully for
themselves the teachings of Luther, when their eyes
will be opened to the true state of things and they will
cease their opposition to the Church against which as
yet the gates of hell have not been able to prevail.
When the minds of men are opened to the truth, we
assure them that if there be any indignation to be
vented, it will not be spent on the Catholic Church, but
upon the man who contemned the authoritative guid-
ance of the religion of their forefathers.

26 The Facts About Luther

To help to clear the way for a better understanding
of diflerences we intend in this little work fairly and
honestly to disclose some of the more important
facts in the religious schism which, begun by Luther,
has proved the most baneful event yet known in
man's history. We will then write about Luther,
not against him. We will quote his own words. If
the result is not favorable to him, the fault will not be
ours. We wish to assure our rea^^ers that we will not
allude to half the disparaging things of the so-called
Reformation and the German people that were uttered
and written by the apostate Saxon monk himself. We
hope none of our readers will shut their eyes to the
truth and that we may be of service to the sincere and
earnest to help them to discover before it is too late
the Church wherein their forefathers found rest, peace,
and salvation. That Church is in our midst to-day and
may easily be discovered. She stands as of old on the
certainty of the Divine vera'^itv and can no more be
shaken than the Throne of God itself. Men like
Luther. Zwingle, Calvin and others appeared upon the
field of battle to wage war against this Church, but
where are they now; where are their congreeations ;
where are their sanctuaries? Who believes their doc-
"trines ? Like the fragments of a thousand barks richly
laden with intellect and learning, all man-made relie-
ions are now scattered on the shores of error and
delusion, while the Church of Truth still rides the waves
in hope, in strength, and in security. God is with her
and she cannot perish. Her enemies then mieht reflect
with profit on what St. John savs in his second ereneral
Epistle : "Whosoever revolteth and hath not the doc-
trine of Christ, hath not God."

The Catholic Church alone has that doctrine which
unites men with God. She was organized for the ex-
press purpose to teach and preserve all thinsfs what-
soever Christ, her Founder, had commanded for the
instruction and salvation of mankind to the end of the
world. She is not man's work. She is Christ's work.
She is His Spouse, His mystical body, as St. Paul tells

Luther : His Friends and Opponents 27

us. It is through her that He continues to communi-
cate His doctrine to men, that He causes them to live
a life of grace, and leads them to their eternal happi-
ness. He founded her that through her He may apply
to mankind the fruits of His Redemption to the end
of time. Hence it follows that no one who through
his own fault dies out of the Church will obtain salva-
tion. *'No one," says St. Augustine, "can be saved
who has not Christ for his heaJ and no one can have
Christ for his head who does not belong to His body,
the Church." These words were spoken long before
Luther and his companions in revolt appeared on the
scene, and they are as true to-cay as when they were
first uttered. The command of Christ to hear the
Church which is the chief work of His power, His
wisdom and His love for mankind, is imperative and
cannot be ignored without sulTering exclusion from
the inheritance of the children of God. The voice of
the Good Shepherd and not that of the hireling must
be heard, if salvation is to be secured. Those who
refuse to receive the true Christian doctrine, and to
enter the Church, v/hich preaches that doctrine in its
entirety, should ponder well the words of St. Paul
when he says, "And though we, or an angel from
heaven, preach a Gospel to you, besides that which we
have preached to you, let him be anathem.a. H anyone
preach to you a Gospel besides that which you have
received, let him be anathema." And again in his
Epistle to Titus he says : "A man that is a heretic after
the first and second admonition, avoid. Knowing that
he, that is such a one, is subverted, and sinneth, being
condemned by his own judgment."

Few men nowadays hate the Church as fiercely and
intensely as St. Paul did before the grace of God
touched his heart and led him into her bosom. That
same grace is ever ready to be imparted to the humble,
sincere, earnest inquirer after Divine truth. No pre-
text, however specious, should deter men from acquir-
ing a full and connected knowledge of God's revela-
tion and enjoying that profound peace which springs

as The Facts About Luther

from the conscious possession of the whole, complete,
and fixed truth as it is in Christ Jesus and in His
Church. The distorted, ever-varying, and changeable
man-made religions of Luther, Calvin, Henry VHI,
Knox, Fox, Wesley, Smith, Dowie, Eddy, and innu-
merable others, can never take the place of the Cath-
olic Church established by God Incarnate in Christ.
In it alone is infallible truth, true life, and certain
salvation. In asking men, who are ''tossed to and fro
by every wind of doctrine," to exchange their opinions
for certitude, their dissensions for unity, their errors
for truth, the Church is only fulfilling her Divine mis-
sion and endeavoring to realize the prayer of her
Founder that there may be but one faith, one baptism
and one shepherd of souls. Fail not, then, we beseech
you, to listen to her voice, investigate her teachings
and accept her authority here and now, so that you
may enjoy, "the peace that passeth all understanding"
and partake of the Bread of Life.

It is certainly high time to discern the tactics of
the wolves in sheep's clothing and have sense and in-
tellect enough to see the sham and the fraud of men-
made brands of religion with their multitudinous divi-
sions, their contradictions, and their lies. The slime-
vending, mud-slinging, vile detractors may try to hide
the sham and the fraud of their unstable beliefs by
well-planned and shameless schemes of attack on the
Spouse of Christ, but the intelligent in the community,
exercising sound judgment and viewing the contra-
dictions and divisions of the enemy from the stand-
point of truth, which they realize can never contradict
itself, consider their efforts as a huge joke in presence
of the Divinely established, heaven-united Church of
all ages and of all peoples. Bigots come and go ; they
make a great splurge and bluster temporarily with
their campaigns of calumny and vilification, but the
Catholic Church, because she is the One established by
Jesus Christ, continues on in her heavenly mission in
spite of the puny weaklings who endeavor to stop her
progress. The Mother Church counts not her numbers

Luther : His Friends and Opponents 39

by men, but by time alone. She has seen centuries
and will see more, not changing one jot in the future,
but still standing and teaching as she does to-day. She
will live to bury all her misguided enemies. She is of
God and cannot be downed or displaced by men no
matter what may be their numbers, their influence, or
their power. "Against her," Christ declared, "the
gates of hell shall never prevail."

CHAPTER 11.
Luther Before His Defection.

THE subject of these papers was born at Eisleben,
in Germany, on the night of the loth of Novem-
ber, 1483, about forty-five years after Guttenberg in-
vented the printing press, and nine years before Co-
himbus discovered America. At one end of a narrow
street in this little town noted for its high-roofed, red-
tiled houses, or as Barbour described it, "at a meeting
of three streets, with a little garden beside it, as became
the place they say it was — an inn — stands the house
where Luther was born. Over the door there is a head
of him in stone with a commemorative inscription
carved round it. You enter the first room to the left
and stand where he was born. It is a largish room,
day and night room it was, one would think, in the inn
time." The old house was partly destroyed by fire and
rebuilt in the seventeenth century. Here in Eisleben
Luther first saw the light of day and here he came to
close his earthly career, his demise occuring February
18, 1546. Visitors to the little town are shown both
house of birth and house of death.

On the day following the birth of the little stranger,
he was brought to St. Peter's Church, where he was
baptized and given the name of Martin in honor of the
saint whose feast it was. The font at which the
waters of baptism were poured on his head to make
him a Christian is still preserved and may be inspected
by the visitor. His father was named John Liider,
which was later on changed to Luther, and his mother
Margaret Ziegler. The father came of peasant stock,
and the mother was of the burgher class from the
neighboring town of Eisenach, and as such held a
higher rank in the community than her husband. Some
writers have endeavored to give the parents a noble
origin, but the claim cannot be sustained. Luther said
to Melanchthon in after years : *T am a peasant's son.

Luther Before His Defection 31

My father, my grandfather, all my ancestors were
genuine peasants. My father was a poor miner." At
times, when he referred to his humble origin, he de-
clared with much force that ''there is as little sense in
boasting of one's ancestry as in the devil priding him-
self on his angelic lineage." Both parents were, ac-
cording to the Swiss Kessler, "spare, short and dark
complexioned." The father was a rugged, stern, iras-
cible character and the mother, according to Melanch-
thon, was conspicuous for "modesty, the fear of God
and prayerfulness." They were a sturdy couple, am-
bitious for their own and their children's advancement,
and lived to a ripe old age.

The original home of the Luther family was in
Morha, a little township situated on the northwest
corner of the Thuringian Forest and a few miles to
the south of Eisenach. In this district a large number
of the inhabitants bore the name of Luther, As late as
1901, six families still belonged to the Luthers. Morha
is up to the present a tiny hamlet with about six hun-
dred inhabitants. It has not changed much in the pro-
cess of time. In the olden days it was so unimportant
as not to merit mention on the map. Then it consisted
of a small collection of seventy or eighty detached
dwellings of a primitive character and mostly of ad-
joining farm yards. With the exception of a solitary
carpenter and shoemaker, both of whom seldom had
occasion to ply their trades, the few hundred inhabit-
ants were mostly wood cutters, farmers and workers
in the slate mines of the district. In this town Luther's
father, like many of his neighbors, owned and cul-
tivated a small farm. He worked and struggled against
great odds to eke out a frugal livelihood. The pros-
pects for worldly advancement were far from encour-
aging to his ambitious disposition, yet he loved the
place because from time immemorial it was the home
of his ancestors. He was not destined, however, to
remain for long with his kith and kin. Shortly after
his marriage with Margaret Ziegler we find him abrupt-
ly abandoning his small holding in the little peas-
ant tov/nship and hurriedly seeking a new home and a

82 The Facts About Luther

new occupation four score miles away in another
hamlet where his first child was born. Ortmann, in
a work which deals in a chronological study of the
Luthers and which is not unknown to students, asks:
*'What could have been the cause which induced John
Luther to take such a step ^ To suddenly decamp with
his wife, too, be it remembered, far advanced in preg-
nancy, to quit and utterly abandon the place of his
birth, the home of his childhood and the site of all his
belongings ?"

Luther's admirers have endeavored to answer the
unpleasant question, but all the explanations made,
and which did service for a time, rest on such a pre-
carious basis as to be unworthy of scholarly accept-
ance. That there was a cause, other than such as is
ordinarily assigned, for John Luther's sudden depar-
ture from Morha is certain, and substantiated by docu-
mentary^ evidence. Henry Mayhew, a man of dis-
tinguished 1-terary attainments and best known as one
of the Mayhew brothers who founded London Punch,
made Luther the subject of a close, careful, critical
study. In an interesting work ablished in London he
treats of the question under consideration and declares
John Luther's departure from Morha was a "flight,"
and he further adds, "men do not fly from their homes
except on occasions of the greatest urgency."

"The simple fact, then," according to Mr. Mayhew,
"would appear to be that John Luther — as Martin
Michaelis tells us in his description of the mines and
smelting houses at Kupfersuhl, a work which was first
published in the year 1702 — Martin's father, had, in a
dispute stricken a herdsman dead to the earth, by
means of a horse bridle, which he happened to have in
his hand at the time and was thereupon forced to
abscond from the officers of justice as hurriedly as he
could."

"This misfortune of John Luther," Ortmann says,
"lives still in the minds of the Morha peasantry. The
villagers there tell you not only the same tale, but they
show you the very spot — the field in which the tragedy
occured"

Luther Before His Defection S3

Mr. Mayhew made a special journey to Morha in
the last century and spent two weeks there with the
object of probing the correctness of Ortmann's state-
ment. He was a staunch Protestant and an enthusi-
astic admirer of Luther, but withal, honest, fearless
and careful. With method in his design he made
searching inquiries concerning the local tradition in all
directions and questioned and cross-examined old and
young in the locality. He found invariably every per-
son knew the same story and all could point out the
identical spot where the murder was committed. "All
the Morha folk," he says, "had had the tale told them
by their grandfathers and they had it from their grand-
fathers before them." The story was so commonly
and unquestionably accepted, that he was forced to
admit its credibility. "Sum up all these matters," is
his conclusion, "and a mass of evidence is cumulated
upon which surely no twelve common jur3^men in their
common senses would hesitate to bring in a verdict of
—Guilty."

The charge of John Luther's homicide was not a
recent tradition but a charge made in Luther's own
lifetime. George Wicel, who in the estimation of the
Reformer was "a very learned and capable man," fir^t
called Luther's father a homicide, and that at three
several times, in 1535, 1537 and 1565, and, moreover,
in public print. It is recorded that on one occasion
Justus Jonas assailed the integrity of the father of
Wicel. The later resented the charge as totally ir-
relevant to the case under consideration, and declared
that if such an argument possessed any validity, "he
could call the father of your Luther a homicide."
Luther and his friends never denied the statement.
According to Karl Seidemann, an expert on Luther,
"the testimony of Wicel may be taken as settling def-
initely the constantly occuring dispute on the subject."
Fr. Ganss in dealing with this question conckr'es a
learned contribution to the American Catholic Quar-
terly Review with an observation which is vitally
germ.ane to the subject. "This is, the wild passion of
anger was an unextinguished and unmodi&ed heritage

34 The Facts About Luther

transmitted congenitally to the whole Luther family
and this to such an extent that the Lutner-zorn (Luther
rage) has attained the currency of a German collo-
quialism. Collectively it is graphically summarized
by the Saxon archivist Bruckner on the basis of arch-
ival research and the official court dockets of Salzun-
gen, the seat of the judicial district." ''Morha," is the
contention of this official, "has attained the reputation
for its rough and brusque character, because in the
leading groups of its relationships, especially in the
Luther branch, it possessed a tough and unyielding
metal, and accordingly allowed itself to be drawn to a
condition of refractorinecs and querulous self-defense.
To the police treasury of Salzungen, Morha, with its
rough-and-ready methods, was a welcome and rich
source of revenue, for, as the police dockets show, the
village was mulcted again and again for acts of vio-
lence, which its inhabitants committed, now in political
or church parties, now as individuals, and foremost
among them the Luthers. The parish manifested so
determined an opposition and obstinacy against the
legal authorities, as well as parochial, as to culminate
in the brutal act of shooting at the household of the
pastor. The condition of the neighbors adjoining the
tovv^n, whose ready resource to arms, knives, scythes,
nightly brawls and public balsphemies, are often al-
luded to, as also the fines imposed for their mis-
demeanors. In these the Luther clan is mostly in-
volved, for it carried on its feuds with others, strikes,
wounds, resists and is ever ready at self-vindication
and self-defense. Out of the gnarly wood of this re-
lationship, consisting mostly of powerful, pugnacious
farmers, assertive of their rights, Luther's father
grew." (Archiv. fiir Sachsische Geschichte III, 38.)

"It will hardly be denied that this characterization
on the whole applied to John Luther and that, more-
over, on evidence well known and abstracting from the
homicide charge."

"And if we admit the leading laws of heredity, this
may account for th'^ fact," as Mayhew states it. "that
Martin was a veritable chip of the hard gld block," and

Luther Before His Defection 85

with reasons, no doubt crudely scientific but pictur-
esquely apposite, he goes on to say : "If a gouty father
or a consumptive mother, in the usual course of nature,
beget a podagric or phthisic child, surely one with a
temper as fiery as a blood-horse may be expected to
cast a high-mettled foal. It may account for that
'terrible temper' of the Reformer, which was a dread
to his antagonists, a shock to refined ears, a mortifica-
tion to his friends, a sorrow to his intimates and an in-
delible stain on his apologetics."

The parents of Lucher in the beginning of their mar-
ried life were not blessed with much of the goods of
this world. They had, however, a strong sense of their
obligations toward their family and the courage to dis-
charge them. Anxious for their own and their chil-
dren's advancement, they worked together and toiled
incessantty to provide food and clothing and education
for their rising offspring. For years their means were
scant enough and the struggle to meet the support of
the household was both hard and grinding. Often the
mother was reduced to the dire necessity of car-
rying home the wood for the family fire, gathered
from the neighboring pine forest, on her own should-
ers. In this home, like many before and since, there
was unfortunately one great deficiency, more intoler-
able than poverty, namely, the absence of the sweet
joys of family life. Childish fun and frolic which be-
get happiness and good cheer, found no encourage-
ment in the Luther family circle. Home life was ex-
acting, cold, dull and cheerless. The heads of the house
took their parental responsibilities too seriously and
interpreted them too rigorously. The father was stern,
harsh, exacting, and, what is rather unusual, the mother
was altogether too much given to inflict the severest
corporal punishmer.-S. With them "the apple did not
always lie beside the rod." They were altogether too
strict and exacting. They believed in work and had no
relish for ir-nocent play and amusement. In the govern-
ment of their chiMren they exercised no discrimination
or moderation. Too much severity ruled the household
and as usual begot disastrous results. To this over-

36 The Facts About Luther

strenuous discipline we may find to a certain degree
the explanation of the development of that temper of
unbending obstinacy for which their son was so re-
markable not only in his earliest years, but throughout
his whole life. 1 hough he seems to have been very
fond of his parents in after life and recalled how they
pinched themselves to give him support and education,
it appears from his own statement that they v/ere ex-
Uemely exacting and punished him cruelly for the most
trifling offenses. As examples of the harsh treatment
to which he was subjected in his youth, he tells us that
on one occasion his father, in a fit of uncontrollable
rage, beat him so mercilessly that he became a fugitive
from home and was on this account so "embittered
against him that he had to win me to himself again."
(Tischreden, Frankfort, 1567, fol. 314a.) At another
time, he says, *'his mother in her inflexible rigor flogged
him, until the blood flowed, on account of a worthless
little nut."

In school he met with the same severity that was
meted out to him at home. The rule here also was that
of the rod. The schoolmaster of that day was gener-
ally a harsh disciplinarian and inspired a fear in pupils
v/hich was difficult to remove ever afterward. Speak-
ing later of his school-day experience, Luther relates
that he was beaten fifteen times in succession during
one morning and, to the best of his knowledge, without
much fault of his own. He, probably, brought the
punishment on himself by insubordination and obsti-
nacy. Whether there was exceptional provocation or
not, the flogging only served to anger him and retard
progress in study. Under this harsh treatment he
learned, as he confesses, nothing. Even the customary
religious training he received at the time does not seem
to have raised his spirits or led to a free, more hopeful
development of his spiritual life. In a fiery character,
such as his, the cruel treatment to which he was
subjected, both at home and in school, could only lay
the foundation of that stubbornness which afterwards
became one of the leading features of the man ; natur-
ally enough it could intimidate the violence of his dis-

Luther Before His Defection 37

position but could not remove it. "This severity," he
says later on, ''shattered his nervous system for life."

When Martin was only six months old his parents
left Eisleben and moved to Mansfelt, a thriving, busy
mining town. Here they hoped to obtain a fairer share
of worldly success. At an early age, Martin was sent
to a school in which the Ten Commandments, Child's
Belief, The Lord's Prayer and the Latin Grammar of
Donatus were taught. His stay in this place was un-
eventful. In 1497, when he was fourteen years old,
he was sent to school with the Franciscans at Magde-
burg, where he spent one year, and thence to another
school at Eisenach, a little town above which rises the
hill crowned by the Wartburg, where long before St.
Elizabeth of Hungary, the holy Landgravine of Thur-
ingen spent the happier part of her life. Here the
young student had some relatives, who, his mother
thought, would give him careful attention, as he was at
the time recovering from a recent attack of sickness.
On his arrival he got a share of a room at the scholar's
Hostel.

In Eisenach Martin, like many other students of the
period, was obliged on account of poverty to sing in
the streets and collect alms from the kindly dispo^'ed
among his hearers. He had a sweet alto voice, which
later became a tenor. On one of these daily rounds
from door to door, a lady of gentle birth and charitable
disposition was attracted to him. Filled with pity for
his condition, she invited him to her home, where ever
afterwards he was treated as an intimate of the family.
The home of this lady is still preserved; the first story
being now a Bierstube, while the upper rooms are used
as a Luther museum. His entrance into the hospitable
family of Ursula Cotta, opened up another and a new
world to him. Here the growing youth got the first
glimpses of the summer side of life and the first taste
cf culture and refinement. The roughness and un-
couthness brought from the peasant's home and the
miningr town were gradually tempered in the boy by
refined arsociatinn with the eentlefolk who frequented
the Cotta household. Away from the hardness and

35 The Facts About Luther

severity of his early rearing, he began now to enjoy life
and experience its gentler graces and pleasures. The
generosity of his benefactress made a profound im-
pression on him. In his old age he recalled her memory
with great gratitude and ever referred to her as his
dear "Wirthin."

At Eisenach he applied himself diligently to the cul-
tivation of the higher studies and laid solidly and well
the foundation of his subsequent learning. Home and
school and teachers here were to his liking. They were
the best he had known and in marked contrast to the
sort he had hitherto experienced or suffered. In an
atmosphere full of fine human feelings, he studiei with
pleasure and mastered his tasks with ease and rapidity.
In those formative years he had as principal of the
High School he attended an educator who knew how
to stimulate the love of study in his pupils. He was a
Carmelite friar named John Trebonius, one of the most
distinguished pedagogues of his day. It is related of
him that upon entering the classroom, he always re-
moved his scholar's cap and insisted that his associate
teachers should follow his example, because of the
respect due to pupils out of whom, he used to say, "God
might make rulers, chancellors, doctors and magis-
trates." In Eisenach, at that time, there were besides
the parish church, no less than nine monasteries and
nunneries. Here Luther had ample opportunities to
satisfy his devotion, and the solemn services of the
Church, the religious dramas and especially the German
sacred hymns which were wont to be sung by the entire
congregation, tended to exercise a cheerful and sooth-
ing influence upon him. Of his life in this place he had
the tenderest memories and often referred to it as his
"beloved town."

From Eisenach, Luther went in the summer of 1501
to Erfurt, noted for its old tile-roofed houses and
known in those days as "The Kitchen Garden Town."
It was a prosperous, rich an^ populous citv. It boasted
some sivtv thousand inhabitPnts and possessed not only
one of tb** finest catbe^r^ls in the countrv. but the
greatest of the German Universities of the period. This

Luther Before His Defection 89'

University was established by a Bull of Clement VII.
in the year 1379 and was the fifth in rank 10 be founded
in Germany. Its fame was widespread and its renown
attracted students from all parts of the country and
even from abroad. It was a common saying, **Who
would study rightly must go to Erfurt." This Univer-
sity boasted the presence of some of the greatest pro-
fessors of the time. The most remarkable of these was
Jodocus Trutvetter,who, in the departments of philoso-
phy, theology and dialectics, stood without an ad-
mitted rival in educational circles. Luther spoke of
this professor later as not only "the first theologian
and philosopher," but also "the first of contemporary
dialecticians." Another famous professor of the Uni-
versity was the Augustinian friar, Bartolomaeus
Arnoldi Von Unsigen, who was not only a profound
scholar but a most versatile and prolific writer. Loyal
Germans were proud of these brilliant lights, whose
fame and genius, they thought, had made the Univer-
sity of Erfurt as well known as that of Paris.

Luther's father entertained a high opinion of his
son's talents. He wanted him to become a great scholar
and a man of renown. His ambition was to see his
son hold a high and influential place in the social scale.
He had hopes that in time he would reach the honor-
able and lucrative position of legal adviser to the
Counts of Mansfelt, who had befriended him in his
earlier days when he had little of life's comforts. "The
father," as Vedder remarks, "wished his boy to be
spared the grinding toil he had known and to enjoy
advantages he had missed. He saw, as many a poor
man has seen since, that for a youth of talent, ability
and application, the most direct avenue to influence
and power is through the higher education and the
scholarly advantages thereby afforded." To further his
designs, he marked out a career for his boy; he was
ambitious to fit him for the profession of law, which
in that day, was a path to the most lucrative offices
both in Church and State. As the result of frugality
and industry his financial condition had improved and
he was no longer dependent on the help of strangers.

40 The Facts About Luther

He, moreover, rose in the esteem,, of his fellow towns-
men until he became Burgomaster of Mansfelt. His
improved financial standing quickened the desire he
had to give his son the advantages of a University
training whereby he would be fitted to become a skill-
ful and learned lawyer and thus in time reach the
mighty things expected of him through association
with the influential and powerful classes. The father's
joy was great when he was able to take his son out of
the ranks of the ''poor students" and in accordance
with a long-cherished project pay with his own means
for the completion of his boy's education.

The growing youth was now in his eighteenth year.
He was entered in the Matriculation Register of the
Erfurt High School as *''Martinus Ludher ex Mans-
felt," and for a considerable time thereafter, he con-
tinued to spell his family name as Liic^er, a f^rm which
is also to be found up to the beginning of the seven-
teenth century in the case of others — Liider, Lulder,
Leuder. From 15 12 he began, however, to '^ign him-
self "Lutherius" or "Luther" by which change of name
he has been designated ever since. ( Kostlin-Kawerau
I, p. 754, n. 2, p. 166.)

When Martin entered the University he found the
students divided into two groups, one known as the
"Humanists" or so-called "poets" and the other as
"Scholastics" or "philosophers." The former sacredly
devoted themselves to the study of the Latin classics
and aimed to found all branches of learning on the
literature and culture of classical antiquity ; the
latter, whilst they favored the pagan Latin models of
style and eloquence, preferred and attached more im-
portance to the cultivation and study of logic and scho-
lastic philosophy. The Humanists considered that a
classical training alone could form a perfect man. The
philosophers, never adverse to the study of the classic
languages as a means of education, were unwilling that
the worldly paganized concept of life advocated by the
ancients should prevail against the spiritual glorifica-
tion of humanity exoound^d and maintained in the
traditional teaching of the Church.

Luther Before His Defection 41

Luther, with his vivacity of thought and feeh.-ig,
soon diccovered that a number of his fellow stude-its
were secretly opposed to sound scholastic studies and
vigorous mental training and covertly endeavored to
bring back to Christendom the ideals of the most de-
caJ.ent days of Greece and Rome. Their humanistic
spirit then did not impress him much, and although
in his private time he studied the Latin classics, more
particularly Cicero, Virgil, Livy, Ovid, also Terence,
Juvenal, Horace and Plautus, it seems he never quali-
fied to enter the secret "poetic" circle composed of
many of the best minds of the day. In a spirit of
genuine love of culture he studied the classic authors,
but, whilst Latin was the language of the classroom
in all the Universities and became a second mother
tongue to him, as to all the scholars of the day, yet he
paid little attention to grammatical details and never
attained to Ciceronian purity and elegance in speech
or writing. He knew Latin well enough for all prac-
tical purposes an.l at a later period he was able to make
skillful use of quotations from the ancient authors
when occasion demanded. Whilst fair progress was
made in his humanistic studies, he preferred to centre
his attention on the more useful branches of learning,
logic and scholastic philosophy. To these studies he
gave his chief attention and whilst he made great pro-
gress, he did not particularly distinguish himself in
them. Melanchthon said : "The whole University
admired his genius." The praise bestowed by the col-
league of his after days does not seem, however, to
have been warranted by the facts. According to
Vedder, a non-Catholic writer, "Luther apparently
made no deep impression on the University and prob-
ably, but for his later distinction, few or none of his
fellow students would have recalled that while among
them he had been known as 'Musicus,' on account of
his learning to play the lute, and as the 'Philosopher*
owing to his frequent fits of moodiness." "In the
numerous letters left to posterity by the aspiring Erfurt
Humanists, his name is never mentioned. iMelanch-
thon's statement, that Luther's talents were the wonder

42 The Facts About Luther

of the University, is hardly borne out by the record,
for when he took his baccalaureate degree, at Michael-
mas, in 1502, he ranked only thirteenth in a list of
fifty-seven candidates. That is respectable, to be sure,
but one requires the vivid imagination of an eulogist
to see anything of startling brilliancy in it. He did
better in taking his Master's degree at Epiphany in
1505, when he ranked second among seventeen can-
didates." (Vedder, p. 5.)

Of his life during his University days, we have no
very clear account, owing to the silence of our sources.
From scattered sayings of his own in after life we
learn he did not look back with any great delight to his
student days at Erfurt. He coarsely described the
town as a ''beer house" and a "nest of immorality."

Luther finished his general education when he was
about twenty-one. The time had now come when he
was to take up the study of jurisprudence in accord-
ance with his father's long-cherished project. The
prospect, however, was little to his liking, as he had
a decided distaste to the legal profession. "Jurists,"
as he thought afterwards, "made bad Christians and
few of them would be saved. They take the money of
the poor and with the tongue deplete both their pocket
and their purse." Notwithstanding his dislike of the
legal profession, however, he began the study of law
in earnest and his work was all that could be de-
sired. After being a law-student for only a few
weeks he suddenly abandoned his studies to the great
disappointment of his father, and returned home for a
brief visit during which time his thoughts turned into
quite a new channel. Ignoring the course mapped out
by his father for his future career, he inconsiderately
and precipitately determined to abandon the world and
work out his salvation within the quiet of the cloister
walls. He was on his way to become an excellent
professor and an accomplished advocate, when, un-
fortunately for himself he resolved, without due con-
sideration of his natural disposition, to become a friar.
Before finally taking the unexpected step, he resorted
to a very strange and unusual preparation for the

Luther Before His Defection 43

state of life he intended to embrace. He wanted to
meet, for the last time, a few of his friends and
some ''honest, virtuous mai;".ens and women" and
accordingly he invited them to a farewell dinner, which
was given on the eve of his entrance into the Augus-
tinian Monastery at Erfurt, July 17, 1505. At the
banquet Luther outwardly was in a most cheerful
mood. He was full of frolic and while the wine-cup
passed freely, he enlivened the gathering by his lute-
playing and singing. The merry guests had little ink-
ling of the unquiet state of his mind and they were
thoroughly surprised when he announced before the
parting that he was about to renounce the world and
become an Augustinian friar. "You see me to-day,"
he said, "but henceforth no more."

His guests, knowing how unfitted he seemed for the
monastic career, and sorry to lose a jovial companion,
pleaded with him to reconsider his decision and loudly
protested against his action. They looked upon him as
just an average youth, in no ways remarkable for piety
or religious zeal, and they knew, moreover, how he
enjoyed the pleasures of life, mingling with the
frivolous in the merriment of the time and indulging
in boar-hunting and other worldly amusements. They
instinctively felt he was not qualified or fitted for the
sublime vocation to which he aspired and they accord-
ingly used all their powers to dissuade him from the
course he had chosen. All their efforts were fruitless,
and from the gaiety and frolic of the banquet hall he
went out to the monastery, at whose gates his jolly
companions bade him farewell. This unexpected st^p
came as a terrible blow to his father. All the plans
he had made for the future well-being of his son were
shattered in a moment. The sacrifices he had made
and the toils he endured to a '.vance his son in a worldly
career were mac-e valueless by the willfulness of him
for whom they had been cheerfully and generously
given. The disappointment was great and his fury
broke out in uncontrollable denunciation.

We naturally ask ourselves now, how was it that
Luther, with his head full of worldly ambition, and

44 The Facts About Luther

already fairly distinguished by his learning and honored
with the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, how was
it he abandoned the secular calling to embrace the
religious ?

The motives that prompted Luther's sudden resolve
to enter the monastery "are," says Ganss, "various,
conflicting and the subject of considerable debate. He
himself alleges that the brutality of his home and
school-life drove him into the monastery. Hausrath,
one of the most scholarly Luther specialists, unreserv-
edly inclines to this belief. The "house at Mansfelt
rather repelled than attracted him." (Beard, "Martin
Luther and the Germ. Ref.," London, 1889, 146), and
to "the question 'why did Luther go into the monas-
tery?' the reply that Luther himself gives, is the most
satisfactory." (Hausrath, "Luther Leben," i, Berlin,
1904, 2, 22.")

"He, himself again, in a letter to his father in ex-
planation of his defection from the Old Church, writes,
"When I was over-stricken and overwhelmed by the
fear of impending death, I made an involuntary and
forced vow." (De Wette, "Dr. Martin Luther's
Briefe," 11 Berlin, 1825, loi.) Various explanations
are given of this episode. Melanchthon ascribes his
step to a deep melancholy, which attained a critical
point "when at one time he lost one cf his comrades
by an accidental death." (Corp. Ref. VI, 156.) Coch-
laeus relates "that at one time he was so frightened in
a field at a thunderbolt, as is commonly reported, or
was in such anguish at the loss of a companion who
was killed in the storm, that in a short time, to the
amazement of many persons, he sought admission to
the Order of St. Augustine." (Cochlaeus, "Historia,
D. M. Luther's Dillingen" 1571, 2.) Mathesius, his first
biographer, attributes it to the fatal "stabbing of a
friend and a terrible storm with a thunderclap." (op.
cit., fol. 46.) Seckendorf, who made careful research,
following Bavarus (Beyer), a pupil of Luther, goes a
step farther, calling this unknown friend Alexius, and
ascribes his death to a thunderbolt. (Seckendorf,
"Ausfiihrliche Historic des Lutherthums," Leipzig,

Luther Before His Defection 45

1714, 51.) D'Aubigne char.-es this Alexius into Alexis
and has him assassinated at Erfurt. (D'Aubigne, *'i-Iis-
tory of the Reformation," New York, s. d., i, 166.)
Oerger ("Von Jungen Luther," Erfurt, 1899, 27-41),
has proved the existence of this friend, his name of
Alexius or Alexis, his death by lightning cr assassina-
tion, a mere legend, destitute of all historical verifica-
tion. Kostlin-Kawerau (i, 45), states that returning
from his "Mansfelt home he Vv^as overtaken by a ter-
rible storm, with an alarming lightning flash and
thunderbolt. Terrified and overwhelme \ he cries out:
"Help, St. Anna, I will be a monk." "The inner his-
tory of the change is far less easy to narrate. We have
no direct contemporary evidence on which to rely,
while Luther's own reminiscences, on which we chiefly
depend, are necessarily colored by his later experiences
and feelings." (Beard, op. cit. 146.) (Cath. Encyc,
Vol. X, p. 4sg.

When we consider the motives that prompted Luther
to abandon the world, we fear he knew little about the
ways of God and was not well informed of the gravity
and responsibilities of the step he was taking. The
calling he aspired to is the highest given to man on
earth and because it is a ministry of salvation, replete
with solemn and sacred obligations, it should not be
embraced without prayerful consideration and v/ise
and prudent counsel. It is only when vocation is suf-
ficiently pronounced and when one by one the different
stages of the journey in which are acquired continu-
ally increasing helps towards reaching the appointed
goal, are passed, that one should enter the sanctuary.
"No man," says St. Paul, "takes the honor to himself,
but he that is called by God." That Luther was not
called by God to conventual life seem.s evident enough
from all the circumstances. Every sign and mark one
looks for in aspirants to the monastic life were ap-
parently lacking in him. Parent and friend alike knew
this and opposed his course, feeling it was merely tlic
expression of a temporary attitude of mind and not a
real vocation. Luther himself admits that he wa^^ driven
by despair, rather than the love of higher perfection,

46 The Facts About Luther

into a religious career. He says: "I entered the
monastery and renounced the world because I de-
spaired of myself all the while." From his earliest days
he was subject to fits of depression and melancholy.
Emotional by temperament, he would pass suddenly
from mirth and cheerfulness to a gloomy, despondent
state of mind in which he was tormented by frightful
searchings of conscience. The fear of God's judg-
ments and the recollection of his own sins sorely tried
him and caused unnecessary anxiety and dread as to
his fate. He saw. in himself nothing but sin and in
God nothing but anger and revenge. He fell a victim
to excessive scrupulousness, and, as he was self-
opinionated and stubborn-minded, he relied altogether
too much on his own righteousness and disregarded
the remedies most effectual for his spiritual condition.
Like all those who trust in themselves, he rushed from
extreme timidity to excessive rashness. Had he con-
sulted those who were skilled in the direction of con-
ventual religious and made known the troubled waters
beneath the smooth surface of his daily life, he might
have been made to understand that, owing to his ab-
normal state of mind and his natural disposition, he
was not fitted for the carrying out of the evangelical
counsels and thus have been prevented from forcing
himself into a mould for which he was manifestly un-
suited. In the uneasy and serious state of his con-
science the advice and counsel of the wise and prudent
were ignored. Moved by his own feelings and relying
on his own powers, he suddenly and secretly decided
for himself a career in life v hich, as events proved,
was not only a mistake as far as he was concerned, but
one fraught with disaster to innumerable others, whom
he afterwards influenced to join in his revolt against
the Mother Church.

Without advice and without full deliberation, even in
spite of the oposition of those who knew him best, he
determined to become a friar. Accordingly he wended
his way to the Augustinian monastery and presented
himself for admission as a novice. The prior received
the young Master of Arts graciously and took him in ap-

Luther Before His Defection 47

parently without difficulty, not fearing, as the Superior
of a modern religious house would most certainly fear,
lest a vocation thus suddenly formed should be after-
wards as su:ldenly abandoned. However, the Superior
put the usual question, *'What seekest thou, my son?"
and Luther replied as was customary, "I seek the
mercy of God and your fellowship." These prelimin-
aries over, he was permitted to enter. According to
the Rule of the Augustinian Order, the young postu-
lant was now given ample time to learn what lay before
him as a friar previous to donning the novice's garb.
An experienced member of the Order all the while ex-
plained the Rule to him and repeatedly reminded him
that he should weigh well and earnestly, whether, as
stated in the statutes of the Order, "the spirit which
was leading him was of God." Only after this prep-
aration was he clothed with the habit of the Order,
which consisted of a white woolen tunic, a scapular,
also white, falling over the breast and back and a black
mantle with a hood and wide sleeves.

During the time spent in preparation for the recep-
tion of the habit Luther was invisible to the world
beyond the m.onastery gate. When he began the novi-
tiate, which lasted a whole year, he was required to
study and live under rules and usages which regulated
every hour of his monastic life. He had to spend many
hours of the day and night in exercises consisting in
prayers, manual labor, and penitential works, all of
which were intended to fit him for reception into the
Order.

This was the formative period of the young novice.
He was supposed to reflect seriously upon the duties
and obligations which at the profession he would take
upon himself, and weigh earnestly the purity of his
motives and the spirit which was leading him. *'The
Lord forbids that a blind being should be offered up
to Him," and as the religious tie was never intended
to bring misery in place of the happiness which it
promises, he as a novice was entirely free until the
hour of profession to abandon his course and return
to the world. The doors of religious houses were then

48 The Facts About Luther

as now always open to those who feel they are not
called to follow the evangelical counsels.

The day came at last for Luther's profession. The
ceremony brought together a large congregation. The
church was crowded with the townspeople and students
from the University. After the usual preliminary
services and when the superiors, who made the official
inquiri.3 abort the novice's motives, were satisfied he
would take th'* vows "at his own desire, freely, not
influenced by iorce or fear,'* the candidate was ad-
mitted to make his proiession and was robed in the
black habit and hood of the Hermits of St. Augustine.
This ceremor.y made him no longer a man in the world
but a monk in the cloister. He now bound himself by
a sacred oath to God to prepare himself for heaven
by treading a path of liie in which perfection is sought
in carrying or.t the evangelical counsels of the Sa-
viour, and engaged throi'.ghout his mortal career to
combat the temptations of the world with the weapons
of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The habit, how-
ever, does not make the monk ; much more is required.
And now we ask, if all the while during his noviceship
Martin was under the impression that his vow to be-
come a religious was only a "forced" one, as he after-
wards alleged, did he act honestly when he knelt down
before his prior, Wienand of Diedenhofen, and bound
himself by the most solemn and sacred oath to per-
severe until death in poverty, chastity and obedience,
according to the rule of the Order of St. Augustine?
Did he act honestly when he first thought of becoming
a friar by concealing his impetuous resolve from the
superior of the monastery, who would hardly have
received him into the Order had he been made aware
of his rash selection of a state of life? Did he act
honestly in holding to his resolution when he knew
that a vow would not have been considered as binding
unless made with full deliberation, and that even if valid
when originally ma^''e, it was no longer binding from
the time when, after conscientious self-examination, he
became aware that, owing to his natural disposition, he
had no vocation for the religious life? What made

LuTHEit Before His Defection- 49

him pursue such an unwise and untenable course?
Was he c'ominated by that spirit of dogged persever-
ance or obstinacy, whereby, as we know, he was deter-
mined, at whatever cost, always to go through with
anything he had once begun?

After making his profession, the young religious was
directed by his superiors to study theology. He im-
mersed himself in his tasks and took great pleasure in
supplementing the teachings of the schoolmen and the
Fathers of the Church by constant and frequent read-
ing of the Sacred Scriptures which were for him, as
they should be for all, a well of instruction and en-
lightenment. The ponderous red copy of the Bible
possessed by the monastery was well thumbed. H!3
course in theology was not, however, as long as it might
have been, for we find he was raised to the priesthood
in a very short time after the year of his novitiate was
completed.

He celebrated his first Mass on Cantate Sunday,
May 2, 1507. It was a day of great import; an oc-
casion for the assembling of old friends. He invited his
father and many ether guests to be present at the
ceremony which meant so much to him, his kindred
and his acquaintances. Thus, in a letter of invitation
to Johann Braun, Vicar in Eisenach, who befriended
him in his early struggles for an education, he shows
how high an estimate he had of the sacerdotal office
and dignity which had been conferred upon him. In
this document, the earliest we have of him, he S2ys
that, "God had chosen him. an unworthy cinner, for
the unspeakable exiguity of His service at the altar,"
and he beff^ed h!s good benefactor to be present at his
first mass and by his prayer3 to assist him, "so that
his sacrifice might be pleasing in the sight of God."
The sacred service began. He appeared to be recollect-
ed, but in reality he was awe-stricken and opprer.sed
beyond measure. He could hardly contain himsjf
for excitement and fear. The sense of his unworLhi-
ness to celebrate the divine mysteries tormented him.
The words "Te igitur dementis ^ime Pater," at the
commencement of the Canon of the Mass, and "offero

50 The Facts About Luther

iibi Deo meo vivo et vero," at the oblation, brought so
vividly to his mind the Awful Eternal Majesty, that
he was hardly able to go on. He was so greatly agi-
tated that he would have come down from the altar
had not the prior of the convent hindered him. The
terrifying idea he had of God spoilt even the happiness
of that day. This may account in great part for his
fearful hatred of the Mass in later days. Many years
afterwards, he says, with reference to his entrance on
the priesthood: "When I said my first Maes at Erfurt,
I was all but dead, for I was without faith; it was
unjust and too great forbearance in God, that the earth
did not at the time swallow up both myself and the
bishop who ordained me."

Old Hans Luther assisted at the ceremony and
brought a company of friends who rode to the convent
door "on twenty horses." His heart was not really in
the celebrat^'on, but the old miner did not wish by his
absence to shame his oldest and most promising son.
His attendance was the first sign of his acquiescence
in his son's vocation. The ceremonies in the church
having been concluded, a modest repast was served
in the monastery to the invited guests. Then Luther
and his father met for the first time since the son's la^t
visit home on the eve of his withdrawal from the world.
In the course of conversation at the dinner table the
young priest endeavored to justify himself for chang-
ing the career his parent had marked out for him and
he longed to receive from his father's lips some words
of approval and congratulation. He spoke of the re-
ligious calling, praised the monastic life as peaceful,
pleasant, and godly, and went on to recall the vow, the
inconsiderate and forced vow, he had made at the time
of the thunderstorm, claiming that he had been im-
pelled by "terror from Heaven." The speech was too
much for the level-headed father, who did not hesitate
there and then to make known the feelinsrs thnt filled
his heart. Glancing round the table and addressing
all thereat, he remarked dryly, "I must sit here and
eat and drink, when I would much rather be anvwbere
else. Have you never heard that a child should obey

Luther Before His Defection 51

his father and his mother? Contrary to the fourth
commandment, you have left me and your mother in
our old age, when we expected help and consolation
from you after expending so much upon your educa-
tion." Luther tried to soften the olJ man's heart, but
all efforts in this direction were useless. When at last
he insisted that he had only followed the divine call
on entering the monastery, the sturdy old peasant,
highly irritated, interposed with this reply; *'GoJ grant
it may not prove a delusion and a diabolical specter."
Luther was stung by the remark, but did not pay much
attention to it at the time. He thought the saying was
only an impatient exclamation in keeping with the
character of the man and with the severity which he
was accustomed to from his earliest c'ays in the home
circle. He, however, never forgot the remark of his
father. It afterwards caused him much anguish of
spirit and doubts of the wisdom and righteousness of
his course. Referring to the speech of his father in
later cays, he tells how "it struck such deep root in his
heart that he never heard anything from his mouth
which he remembered so tenacioucly. He thought Go:l
spoke by his lips." "However," he goes en to say, "at
that time I was so obdurate in my devotional intent
that I shut my heart as much as I could against his
words, as being only of man."

Luther was now a religious and a priest. There is no
reason to doubt that he realized to the fullest extent
the cares, duties, and responsibilities of his sacred
calling and with apparent ardor, devotion and faith-
fulness, he endeavored to pass his life in correspond-
ence with its spirit and requirements. The few years he
spent in the priesthood before his defection were strenu-
ous, active and busy. He lectured, as be:t he could
and as well as his previous hurried preparation per-
mitted, on Ethics in the Faculty of Philosophy and on
special portions of the Hcly Scriptures in the newly
founded University of Wittenberg, a town accredited
then as the most bibulous one of the most bibulous
province (Saxony) of Germany. In addition to these
labors, he preached alternately in the monastery of

Z2 The Facts About Luther

his Order, the Castle Chapel and the Collegiate Church
of the town. His duties were manifold and the largest
demands were made upon his energies. He had little
time left after fulfilling his various offices for intellec-
tual pursuits. The story of his all too rapid advance-
ment shows his preparatory studies to have been any-
thing but deep, solid, and systematic. "Comparatively
considered," Fr. Johnston says, "the theological cul-
ture he received was not on a par with that required
now by the average seminarian, let alone a Doctor of
Divinity." He was sharp, fiery, intelligent, and pos-
sessed much fancy and originality, but his knowledge
was merely elementary. He had no appreciation of
the scholastic speculation and logic so much hcnorei
at the time; in fact, he hated the whole system of the
schoolmen, not excepting even the great scholar and
theologian, St. Thomas. Scholastic subtleties were not
always to his liking and to show his contempt thereof
he frequently pays his compliments to the "rancid
rules of the logicians," and to "that putrid philosopher
Aristotle." A feeling of the insufficiency of his educa-
tion tormented him all through his life. He expressed
very strongly to Staupitz his fear to stand for the
doctorate and only consented under pressure to pass
the required examination to comply with the wishes
of the Superior of his Order. "I was obliged," he
says, "to take the degree of Doctor of Divinity and to
promise under oath that I would preach the Holy
Scriptures which were very dear to me, faithfully and
without adulteration." To the study of the Bible he
gave himself up with great ardor, so much so that he
neglected the rest of his theological education, and his
teacher Usingen was obliged to protest against his one-
sided study of the sacrecl text. It cannot be denied
that he was industrious, self-reliant, ambitious, but
withal, he was not a methodically trained man. At
bottom, he was neither a philosopher nor a theologian,
and at no time of his life, despite his efforts to acquire
knowledge, did he show himself more than superficially
equipped to grapple with serious and difficult philo-

Luther Before His Defection 53

sophical and religious problems. His study never rose
to brilliancy.

Luther's professorial duties were interrupted for a
short while when in the autumn of 15 lo he set out for
Rome on business connected with the welfare of his
Order. His absence extended over a period of four
or five months, only one of which he spent in the
Eternal City. After attending to the mission en-
trusted to him, he spent much of his time in sight-
seeing, visiting the holy places, and secretly taking
lessons in Hebrew from a Jew called Jacob, "who gave
himself out as a physician." Like the average traveller
to the city to-day, he could not be expected in the short
time he remained there to stuc'.y the character of a
people of whose language he was ignorant and to set
himself up as a judge of the country and a censor of
its citizens. Looking at things through his German
spectacles, it seems, if we can credit his later writings,
that his observations concerning the condition of things
in Rome were not to his liking. He is said to have
been thunderstruck with the wickedness and impiety
of the Romans and of Italians in general. Their south-
ern freedom and lack of restraint were not such as to
appeal to his phlegmatic, northern temperament. It
was, therefore, easy for him to believe all the anecdotes
concerning the corruption then supposed to be rampant
in lay and ecclesiastical circles which he claimed were
told him by his not over trustworthy guides and
acquaintances. Most of his experiences are given in
the 'Table Talk" and his later writings, and may
be summed up in the following words he says he heard
fall from the lips of one cf his companions: *Tf there
be a Hell, then Rome is bnllt on it." In the works
alluded to the share which he himself actually took in
the pious pilgrim-exercises of the time is kept very
much in the background. Indeed, he tells that whilst
he was in Rome he celebrated Mass ''perhaps once,
perhaps ten times: i. e., occasionally, not regularly."
Can it be possible that there were no good people in
Rome at the time of his visit, or was it that in the
moroseness of his spirit he was looking only for

54 The Facts About Luther

abominations and corruption ? When was there a time
when there were not scandals? It must needs be on
account of the depravity of human nature that they
exist. But whilst we admit that there may have been
and actually were many influenced by the godless spirit
of the world at the time, we cannot see how any
amount of corruption of morals should unduly in-
fluence any one who consistently and thoroughly loves
virtue and hates vice. If we admit that Luther was
greatly scandalized at what he heard and saw, how
comes it that VvC hear nothing from him about his
experiences in Rome after he left the city and returned
home? Jiirgens says, "He may have spoken of these
things to his friends." He may, yes, but did he? If
his visit turned his reverence for Rome into loathing,
as his admirers glory in narrating, we have no proof
of it in his writings and addresses immediately after
his return to Erfurt. Bayne, a non-Catholic writer,
alluding to this matter says: *'In his htters of thos:
years he never mentions having been in Rome. In
conference with Cardinal Cajetan, in his disputations
with Dr. Eck, in his epistles to Pope Leo, nay, in his
tremendous broadside of invective and accusation
against all things Romish, in his 'Address to the Ger-
man Nation and Nobility,' there occurs not one un-
mistakable reference to his having been in Rome. By
every rule of evidence we are bound to hold that when
the most furious assailant Rome has ever known de-
scribed from a distance of ten years upwards, the in-
cidents of a journey through Italy to Rome, the few
touches of light in his picture are more trustworthy
than its black breadths of shade." (Bayne, ''Martin
Luther," 1,234.) Whilst we admit that there may
have been by far too much wickedness and impiety in
the Rome of the Popes of the heights of the Renais-
sance, we beg to be allowed to question its extent
and especially to doubt the accuracy of the statements
made by Luther ten years after his visit to Rome, when
he was exceedingly spiteful and anger against the Holy
City displaced his old-time reverence. It is hardly
worth while to go into the details of the scandals he

Luther Before His Defection 55

relates when he severed his connection with the
Church. The intelligent reader can determine for
himself whether a man who is capable cf telling or
believing all the absurd anecdotes about the condition
of things at Rome he mentions in his later writings,
can be looked upon as an impartial witness; or
whether the scathing arraingement which he pro-
nounces at a distance of ten years can be considered
reliable. To say the least Luther's whclc Roman
experience, as described by him in his later years
when he was in open rebellion against the Church,
is open to question. Hausrath, a non-Catholic writer,
does not hesitate to say : **We can really question the
importance attaehed to remarks which in a great
measure ^late from the last years cf his life, when he
was really a changed man. Much that he relates as
personal experience is manifestly the product of an
easily explained self-delusion." (Hausrath, "Luther's
Romfahrt," p. 79.)

Many non-Catholic authors delight to regale their
readers with all the absurd and incredible stories
Luther told later on in his life about his visit to Rome.
Their object is to furnish a graphic historical begin-
ning of the change Luther's mind was undergoing
towards the Church. With ell due respect for what
these ill-informed writers allege, we are obliged in the
interest of truth to tell them that Luther's visit to
Rome in nowise shook his conviction of the author-
ity of the Holy See or affected in the least his spiritual
life and theological thought. In support of this state-
ment, we quote Vedder, the latest of the non-Catholic
writers on Luther, who says: "His faith in the Church
and its system was not at that tim.e seriously affected."
(Vedder, p. 12.) Long before this statement was an-
nounced, we find the non-Catholic Hausrath declaring
that Luther "returned from Rome as strong in the
faith as he went to visit it. In a certain sense his
sojourn in Rome even strengthened his religious con-
victions." (Hausrath, "IVI. Luther's Romfahrt," p. 98.)

In the spring of 15 n, when he was nearing eight-
and-twenty years of age, we find him back at the

56 The Facts About LtrrnER

University of Erfurt. At the time he journeyed to
Rome, his character was not yet surixiently formed ;
he was, as Oldecop says, "a wild young fellow." How-
ever, for five or six years after his return we find that
he lectured, preached and wrote on t-.e Catholic means
of Grace, the Mass, Indulgences and Prayer in entire
accordance with the trad.t.onal doctrine of the Church.
Just to show some of the ill-infcrmed the Catholic
thoughts which engaged him in his wanderings
through Rome we give his words on the power of the
Papacy and commend them to the corsideration of the
serious. "If," he says, "Christ had not entrusted all
power to one man, the Church would not have been
perfect because there would have been no order and
each one would have been able to say he was led by
the Holy Spirit. This is what the heretics did, each
one setting up his own principle. In this way as many
Churches arose as there were heads. Christ therefore
wills, in order that all may be assembled in one unity,
that his power be exerci3ed by one man to whom also
He commits it. He has, however, made this Power so
strong that He looses all the powers of Hell, without
injury, against it. He says: The gates of Hell shall
not prevail against it,' as though He said : They will
fight against it but never overcome it,* so that in this
way it is made manifest that this power is in reality
from God and not from man. Wherefore whoever
breaks away from this unity and order of the Power,
let him not boast cf great enlightenment and wonder-
ful works, as our Picards and other heretics do, for
much better is obedience than the victims of fools who
know not Svhat evil they do.' " "Eccles. IV, 17."
(Werke Weim. ed. i, 1883, P- 69).

This extract teems with respect for the head of the
Church and may well be recommended for considera-
tion to all who claim without warrant that the Re-
former was disturbed by what he saw and heard in
Rome.

Luther, as remarked before, led a busy life whilst
he was a monk. His duties were manifold and exact-
ing. Constant demands were made upon his time and

Luther Before His Defection 67

resources on account of the many offices he was called
on to fulfill. He had few spare moments for intellec-
tual pursuits, and to allow more ample time for study;
his religious duties were performed but irregularly
and spasmodically. This course could only bode ill
for his future. Infractions of the rules, breaches of
discipline, distorted ascetic practises were frequent
and followed ever with increasing gravity. We are
told he sometimes omitted to recite the Divine Office
for three or four weeks together, a duty to which,
after the observance of his vows, he was bound under
the penalty of grievous sin. Then in a fit of parox-
ysmal remorse he would lock himself into his cell and
set to work to repair the omission by a continuous
recitation of all that had been hft unsaid. On these
ocassions he would abstain from all food and drink
and torture himself by harrowing mortifications.

According to the account Luther gives of himself
in later years he was **a religious of the strictest
observance." "I was a pious monk," he says, "and so
strictly followed the Rule of my Order, that I ('are to
say if ever any man could have been saved by monkery,
I was that monk. I was a monk in enrnest, and fol-
lowed the Rule of my Order more strictly than I can
express. If ever monk could obtain Heaven by his
monkish works, I should certainly have been entitled
to it. Of all this, the friars who have known me can
testify. If it had continred much longer, I should
have carried my mortifications even to death, bv means
of watchings, prayers, readings, and other labors."
How far this may have been true it is difficult to say.
Whatever his fellow-monks may have been able to
testify there is no extant record of th^ir confirmatory
testimony on this point. One thine: at lea'^t is clear
from Luther's own words. His sp^'nt^^al^ endeavors,
whether earnest or not. were singularly ill-reg^ulated
and according to an old monastic proverb: "Every-
thing beyond obedience looks suspicious in a monk."

It seems that during his religious life he was much
agitated and given to gloom and despair by the sense
of sin. He saw in himself nothing but sin, more sin

58 The Facts About Luther

than he felt he could atone for by any works of pen-
ance. Apparently he had strong passions which fre-
quently asserted themselves ana which he sought to
subdue in his own way. In all his prayers and fastings
the conception of GoJ he placed before his mind was
very much that of a God of avenging justice and very
little that of a God of'mercy. The fear of the divine
wrath made him abnormally apprehensive and pre-
vented him from experiencing comfort and help in the
performance of religious exercises. His sorrow for
sin was devoid of humble charity and instead of trust-
ing with childlike confidence in the pardoning mercy
of God and in the merits of Christ, as the Church
always exhorted the sorely tried to do, he gave himself
up to black despair. His singularity brought on dis-
tress of soul and his anxiety increased until wakeful-
ness became a confirmed habit. His condition became
so sad that at times his fcllcw-monks feared he was on
the verge of madness. In his later days, he drew this
picture of his state of soul whilst he was a monk.
"From misplaced reliance on my righteousness," he
says, "my heart became full of distrust, doubt, fear,
hatred and blasphemy of God. I was such an enemy
of Christ that whenever I saw an image or a picture
of him hanging on His Cross, I loathed the sight and
I shut my eyes and felt that I would rather have seen
the devil. My spirit wis completely broken and I was
always in a state of melancholy; for, do what I would,
my 'righteousness' and my 'good works' brorgfht me
no help or consolation." (Janssen, Vol. Ill, p. 84.)

Was this the fault of the state of life he had chosen?
Perhaps, inasmuch as he had e-tered into it without
due deliberation. But passinsf this consideration over,
we feel that had he not disregarded the monastic
regulations for those of his own devising and had he
put into practise the wise directions of his spiritual
guides, his troubles of soul would certainly have been
much mitisrated and considerably surmounted. Like
most victims of scrupulosity he saw nothing in himself
but wickedness and corruption. Not content with the
ordinary spiritual exercises prescribed by the rule of

Luther Before His Defection 59

the Order, he marked out for himself an independent
path of righteousness. He wanted to have his own
way, and, as is usual in the case of all stubborn minds,
the arbitrary means he resorted to for relief only made
his condition worse. "1 prescribed," he says, ''special
tasks to myself and had my own ways. My superiors
fought against this singularity and they did so rightly.
I was an infamous persecutor and murderer of my
own life, because I fasted, prayed, watched, and tried
myself beyond my powers, which was nothing but
suicide." (Jurgens i, 577, 585.)

Luther in his struggle to overcome his passions and
attain the perfection of his priestly state seemed to
forget the words of Christ: ''Without Me you can do
nothing." Here was his great mistake. To arrive at
sanctity of life by one's own justice and the power of
works alone is not only impossible, but absurd. Sucli
a course was never advanced or advocated by the
Catholic Church, and when Kostlin ar.d other non-
Catholic writers say that the Catholic teaching drove
Luther to the extravagances of his distorted ascetic
practises, they probably hcive of that teaching the
same wrong idea that Luther had. *'I am," he said,
"a most presumptuous justiner, who trusts not in God's
justice, but in my own." A true Catholic is never
expected to become a "presumptuous justiiier" and he
never can unless he relies too much, if not entirely,
en his own merits and good works.

Luther now began to think that the sad condition
of his soul resulted from the teaching of the Church
on good works while all the time he was living in
direct and open opposition to the Church's doctrine
and disciplinary code. Misled by the caprices of his
own imagination, he became more and more subject
to fits of melancholy and discouragement, so that, as
he says, he even "hated God and wished that he had
never been born." He would have done well had he
remembered the good and sensible advice which
Staupitz, his superior, gave when he said to him:
"Enough, my son: you soeak of sin, but know not
what sin is ; if you desire the assistance of God, do not

60 The Facts About Lhther

act like a child any longer. God is not angry with you
but you are angry with God." The advice was cer-
tainly required in his state of intense scrupulosity but
it did not seem to have left any abiding impression on
his mind. His morbid interior conflict banished all
peace of soul. He was unhappy, not because he was a
monk, but because, though a monk exteriorly, he
never entered interiorly into the spirit of his Rule or
of his Church. A reaction was inevitable and his mind,
not accustomed to self-examination and self-control,
went as far as possible in the opposite direction. From
extreme timidity he passed to excessive rashness.
Formerly he trusted too much in his own powers and
wilful exertions. He perceives the absurdity and
weakness of his self-reliant position and recedes there-
from entirely despairing in its help. Then, going to
another extreme, he throws himself too far upon God's
mercy, so far, in fact, as to renounce even co-operation
with God's grace and to expect salvation without any
ciTort or action on his own part. Thus from one
absurdity he passed to another with the utmost facility.
He came by degrees to believe that by reason of in-
herited sin, man was become totally depraved and
possessed no liberty of the will. He then concluded
that all human action whatever, even that which is
directed towards good, being an emanation from our
corrupt nature, is, in the sight of God, nothing more
or less than dcac'ly sin : therefore our actions have no
influence on our salvation ; we are saved "by faith
alone without good works." He thought that "faith in
Christ makes His merits our possession, envelops us
in the garb of righteousness, which our guilt and sin-
fulness hide, and supplies in abundance every defect
of human righteousness.'*

It has long been considered amongst the ill-informed
that Luther inaugurated his movement against the
Church of his forefathers from a desire of reform.
This view-point is not borne out by the facts in the
case. External causes played little or no part in his
change of religion. The impelling motive centered i i
his own nature, which demanded a teaching able to

Luther Before His Defection 61

assure his tormented sonl of pardon of sin and ulti-
mate salvation. Troubled with doubts as to his voca-
tion and oppressed by "violent movements of hatred,
envy, quarrelsomeness and pride," his singular self-
esteem and self-reliance would not suffer him to make
intelligent and enlightened use of the remedies most ef-
fectual for the cure of his abnormal spiritual maladies.
Wedded to his own opinions and refusing to hear the
voice of God in Catholic direction, his temptations,
doubts, and fears increased, as might be expected, un-
til they drove him to despair of salvation and "plague 1
him with the spirit of sorrow." Tortured by the
melancholy thoughts of predestination, he failed to
humble himself in childlike, trustful prayer to find a
way out of his spiritual troubles. He spurned the use
of the approved methods of mastering spiritual dif-
ficulties, and even considered these as worthless to
liclp in acquiring sanctity and holiness of life. Instead
of overcoming such sentiments he allowed them to
develop to such an extent that an apostate spirit mas-
tered him. Dissatisfied with the ordinary means of
conquering self, he vainly thought he would find the
peace of conscience he scrcly needed by following his
own conceptions and setting up a teaching of his own
as ajainst the traditional methods and approved theol-
ogy of the ancient time-honored Catholic Church.

Led on by a spirit that was not of God, he formu-
lated and proclaimed the blasphemous pronounce-
ment that the Catholic Church was unable by her
teaching and sacramental system to reconcile souls
with God and bring comfort to those thirsting after
salvation. From error to error he passed in quick
succession until we find him unblushingly upholding
the utter corruption of human nature because of origi-
nal sin, denying the freedom of the will, defending th^
rights of reason against dogmatic authority and de-
claring that "reason speaks nothing but m.adness and
foolishness." These and many other erroneous teach-
ings, as we shall see furth'^r on, bothered him until he
severed his connection with the Catholic Church and
without credentials inaugurated a system of religion

6S The Facts About Luther

of his own making wherein he would be free to preach
his own individual conceptions, which he thought would
bring peace and happiness and comfort to struggling
souls, but which ended, as sad experience attests, in
conflicts, misery and despair. Was this the work of
God or the work of an enemy of God? Was this
obedience to the manifest will of God in the sanctifica-
tion of souls or was it rebellion in ugliest form an J
with the saddest consequences? Was it reformation
or was it deformation?

From out the vast number whom the enemy of man
raised up to invent heresies, which St. Cyprian says,
''destroy faith and civi'^e unity," not one, or all to-
gether, ever equalled or surpassed Martin Luther in
the wide range of his errors, the ferocity with whicli
he promulgated them and the harm he did in leading
souls away from the Church, the fountain of ever-
lasting truth. The heresies of Sabellius, Arius, Pel-
agius anJ other rebellious men were insignificant as
compared with those Luther formulated and pro-
claimed four hundred years ago and which unfortun-
ately have ever since done service against the Church
of the living God. In Luther m.ost, if not all, former
heresies meet, and reach their climax. To enumerate
fully all the v/icked, false and perverse teachings of
the arch-heretic wordd require a volume many times
larger than the Bible, and every one of the lies and
falsehoods that have been used against the Catholic
Church may be traced back to him as to their original
formulator. When the Protestant ranks were united
in a solid phalanx against the Mother Church, a lie
that passed current bearing Luther's mark was good
coin everywhere in heretical circles.

To get some idea of the character and extent of the
false and pernicious teaching a^Vanced by Luther, it
would be necessary to spend a life-time in the perusal
of his numerous works. Amongst those that have come
down to us are his Forty One propositions, which were
condemned by Leo X. in his bull Exurqe Domine,
published in 1520 and found in the Bullarium of
Leo X. (Constit. 40), in Cochlaeus' account of Luther's

Luther Before His Defection 63

proceedings and in Bernini's Works. Besides the er-
rors enumerated in the Bull of Leo X. there are a vast
number of others mentioned and set forth clearly by
Noel, Alexander, and Gotti, who made a special study
of the various writings of Luther, particularly his
treatises, "De Indulgentiis," **De Reformatione,"
"Respon. ad lib. Catharini," "De Captivitate Babilon-
ica," "Contra Latomum," *'De Missa privata," "Contra
Episc. Ordinem," ''Contra Henricum VIII, Regem,"
"Novi Testamenti Translatio," "De formula Missse et
Communionis," "Ad Waldenses," "Contra Carlos-
tadium," "De Servo Arbitrio," "Contra Anabaptistas,"
etc. In all these works and in some others printed in
Wittenberg, we find the novel and arbitrary teachings
he invented to displace, if possible, the doctrines which
the Church had inherited from Christ and His Apostles.
There may be seen how the primitive Christian teach-
ing underwent, under his direction, a fundamental
alteration in its most essential parts, and there also
may be found the principles he laid down with an ar-
rogance as blasphemous as it was rnreaconable, for
the subversion and destruction of all moral and civil
order. The brazen boldness which appears on almost
every page of works written to ventilate his per-
nicious religious and moral views, has never been
equalled before or since by any other enemy of the
Church of God.

The Catholic Church knows that heresies must needs
arise and whilst she pities their formulators and pro-
moters she is always patient and forbearing. She
knows their work is the work of man and like him
destined to die. They do harm for a time. They mis-
iead; injure and persecute while they last, but triumph
they never shall. Built upon the dissolving nightmares
cf unhappy visionaries, their false teaching courts fail-
ure and disaster. Men, gradually through prayer and
study, grow wise to the tactics of "false teachers" an 1
organizers of "sects of perdition," and learn to beware
of them, as Christ directed, for they are ranked, as St.
Paul tells, amongst "murderers and idolators" "who
shall not possess the Kingdom cf God." A vul^r

64 The Facts About Luther

man-made form of belief can never satisfy for long the
aspirations, needs, and foreshadowings of those who
are in real earnest in their search for the true religion,
which, by divine arrangement, was made independent
of the powers of the world, and destined to continue
its saving mission in spite of all opposition.

The Church of Jesus Christ can never be displaced
by any or all systems of human manufacture, for they
always bear on their face the stamp of error and
falsehood. Built on the everlasting granite of the
Petrine rock, one pebble of whose power the combined
ages and nations have not succeeded in knocking from
its surface, the Church has triumphed everywhere and
at all times over error and its abettors. Christ sai 1 in
the creation of the Church that "the gates of Hell will
not prevail against her," and so speaks He every hour
in her preservation. She cannot, therefore, perish and
go down before the work "of sects of perdition" as
St. Paul calls the organizations of religious revolution-
ists and anarchists. The Catholic Church is God's
work and His protecting power will ever preserve her
unshaken and immovable to tell men till the last mo-
ment of time what they must believe and what they
must do to gain eternal happiness.

CHAPTER III.
Luther and Indulgences.

LUTHER for some little time before his breach with
the Church seemed to forget the sacred obligation
he was under by reason of his doctorate to preserve
Catholic orthodoxy and never in the least to de-
part therefrom. A great change v^as discernible in
his spiritual life. By degrees he grew indifferent to
the performance of good works and failed to meet the
aims and to follow the rules of monastic discipline.
Neglecting to spiritualize his life by the usual and
approved exercises of piety, his faith naturally weak-
ened and grew cold and, as might be expected in such
a dangerous state, he came little by little to antago-
nize the Church's teachings. Whether he was con-
scious or not of the sad condition of both soul and in-
tellect by reason of the growing omission of his spiri-
tual duties, he began unfortunately to find fault with
certain beliefs, customs and conditions of the Church
which happened to meet with his displeasure. As time
went on, he grew bolder in his fault-finding and be-
came more unduly critical and contentious. Carried
away by pride, and stimulated by the applause his
singular methods won for him among those who longed
to be freed from the requirements of Christianity, he
began to denounce what he called the "buffoonery" of
contemporary theologians, and conceiving himself to be
the master mind of all, he imagined that he was
especially fitted to bring about a reformation of the
ancient discipline of the Church and effect a sweeping
change in her consecrated, fixed and accepted teach-
ings. The course he was pursuing was characteristic
of the man. As Dungcrsheim says : ''He had always
been a quarrelsome man in his way and habits," and,
as his pupil OldecoD declares, *'he never learnt to live
at peace and being disputatious, he was always desirous
of coming off victor in differences of opinion and liked
to stir up strife."

66 The Facts About Luther

His revolutionary methods and daring innovations
were fast pushing him toward the path of error. To
careful observers he vvas becoming an object of sus-
picion and among the learned of the time he was
gradually losing caste and acquiring a bad name for
himself on account of the growing opposition of his
views to those of the Church of his forefathers. *'As
early as 15 15," Mathesius, his pupil and first bio-
grapher, tells us, ''he was already called a heretic."
His Rector, the famous Dr. Pollich, aware of his novel
and dangerous pronouncements, is said to have given
his estimate of the young professor in these words :
*This monk has deep eyes ; he has strange fancies and
will no doubt later on disturb the teachings prevalent
at the Universities." Was this great scholar a prophet?
Whether he was or not matters little, but of one thing
we are certain, events justified the estimate formed
of him.

Luther on account of a lack of a solid systematic
theological training, as well as by reason of the con-
fusion of his mind in dealing with grave questions,
together with a deficiency in real Catholic feeling, was
preparing himself for revolt. He needed only time
and opportunity and stubborn resolve to broach openly
and give wide publicity to the strange and peculiar
doctrinal views vv^hich he had secretly formed and
which eventually became the fundamental articles of
his new system of religion. Knowingly or unknov/-
ingly, he was preparing himself to sever his connec-
tions with the Church of his forefathers. His inward
falling away from the graces of his priestly state and
his trifling with most serious and sacred questions of
Divine faith, combined with the restless condition of
his mind and attachment to his own ideas, were dis-
posing and fitting him for a great public outbreak
when he would give his novel and erroneous teachings
to the world.

A favorable opportunity for airing his new-fangled
notions presented itself when John Tetzel, the famous
Dominican friar, was actively and zealously engaged
in preaching the Indulgence granted by Pope Leo X.

Luther and Indulgences 67

for the construction of St. Peter's Giurch in Rome.
This distinguished preacher no doubt would have
remained but Httle known in history were it not for
the epoch-making event in which he and Luther figured
so conspicuously. Many years later Luther in refer-
ring to the struggle which created such a great stir
in the world, declared that he W'as drawn by force into
the famous controversy and called forth unwillingly
from his professorial duties into the arena of public
life. Lie says : ''I was completly dead to the world
till God deemed the time had come ; then Squire Tetzel
excited me with the Indulgence and Doctor Staupitz
spurred me on against the Pope." ("Colloquia," ed.
Bindseil, 3, p. 188.) This stc^tement, with its nasty
fling at his opponent, was made years after the oc-
curence when the circumstances appeared to him very
different from what they really were, as we shall dis-
cover later on. Let us now pass on to the occasion
v/hlch led to Luther's encounter with Tetzel.

Julius 11. had it brought under his notice that the
ancient Basilica of St. Peter, which had been given to
the Church by the Emperor Constantine, was now
falling into decay. He determined to use the oppor-
tunity and to employ all the architectural talent of that
brilliant period, in order to erect a new Basilica in its
place, which by its magnificence should be worthy of
its position as the memorial of the great Apostle and
the central church of the Catholic world. Julius 11.
commenced the work and devoted large sums to its
accomplishment. These, however, were far from suf-
ficient, and it became evident that the cost of a build-
ing of such magnitude could be defrayed only by a
successful appeal to the piety of the Christian world.
Accordingly, Leo X., the successor of Julius, who died
in 1513, proclaimed an Indulgence; that is to say, he
granted an Indulgence of a most simple kind to all,
wherever they might be, who would contribute ac-
cording to their means towards the expenses of the
rising edifice.

This is not tlic place for a detailed exposition of the
Catholic doctrine of Indulgence, but it is necessary that

68 The Facts About Luther

the reader should bear m mind the official meaning of
the term and what it represents. The word Indulgence
in the mind of the Church signifies favor, remission or
commutation. This meaning has been gradually changed
by non-Catholics to convey the sense of imlawful
gratification and of free scope to the passions. On this
account, it happens that when some ignorant or preju-
diced persons hear of the Church granting an Indul-
gence, the idea of license to commit sin is at once pre-
sented to their minds. This is far from the truth, for an
Indulgence, as may be seen by a glance at any Catholic
handbook of theology, is a total or partial remission
of the temporal punishments which remain due to sin,
after the guilt and eternal punishment have been for-
given. There are three things to be considered in
every deadly sin: first, its guilt; second, its eternal;
and third, its temporal punishment. The first and
second are forgiven by the sacraments of baptism and
penance, as the ordinary channels of pardon ; the third
is expiated by our sufferings, and our penances, or by
remission or commutation through an Indulgence.

An Indulgence, therefore, has, properly speaking,
nothing to do with the guilt of, and the eternal punish-
ment due to, mortal sin, nor does an Indulgence forgive
venial sin. Much less is it a permission for the com-
mission of future sins, as the adversaries of the Church
have calumniously asserted. An Indulgence regards
temporal punishment only. Many non-Catholics do
not sufficiently understand the nature of an Indulgence
and hence arises their misrepresentation of the doc-
trine. ]\Iany imagine that it forgives sin, and many
more, that it is a permission to sin. They represent a
man who gains a full or plenary Indulgence, as one
who for a certain sum of money, to be given to the
pope, bishop, or priest, obtains absolution from all his
crimes, without any sorrow or repentance of heart,
and, at the same time, a kind of permit to sin as much
as he pleases in the future. Once more, therefore,
an Indulgence has nothing whatever to do with the
guilt of past sins, nor their eternal punishment, much
less with sins to come. And if some of the bulls or

Luther and Indulgences 69

briefs, regarding the grant of Indulgences, speak in that
strain, they are either falsified by our enemies, or else
must be understood in the only Catholic sense, namely,
the remission of the temporal punishments which sin
deserves. Indeed, how could any honest and sensibk-
man think the Church so silly as to contradict herself
on this score? She teaches most positively that in
order to obtain the pardon of sins committed after
baptism, the only ordinary means instituted by Jesus
Christ is the Sacrament of Penance; and now, she is
made to say, by the mouth and pen of our adversaries,
that the Sacrament of Penance is by no means the
only ordinary means, but that Indulgences, without any
repentance whatsoever, will answer just as well. She
says in her doctrine on confession that sorrow for sin,
including a firm purpose of amendment, so firm that
one should be resolved to die rather than offend Al-
mighty God by any deadly sin, is an absolutely neces-
sary condition of pardon for sin; and in her doctrine
on Indulgences she is made to say, by our adversaries,
that any one can, on paying a certain sum of money,
purchase not only pardon for sins already committed,
but for such as he has a mind to commit in future. It
is important to keep in mind this explanation of an
Indulgence as given b}^ the Church in order to be
guarded against those who maliciously construe her
teaching to convey the sense of unlawful gratification
and of free scope to the passions.

To say that an Indulgence gives a license to commit
sin for money is a falsehood cut out of whole ch^th.
Non-Catholics who oft"er objections to the Church's
idea of Indulgences should be careful as to how they
express themselves on the question for they profess to
believe that all that the greatest sinners have to do to
receive full pardon and plenary Indulgence for all their
sins, past, present, and future, is to have faith. Such
is the omnipotence attrilmted to an act by those who
believe in ''justification by faith alone." What hypoc-
risy to roll up the whites of one's eyes in a pretence
of holy horror at the Catholic doctrine of Indulgences,
which is severity itself compared witli their swccj-inje:

70 The Facts About Luther

act of faith which alone suffices to wash all a man's
sins away, and put him at once, without penance or
purgatory, into the company of the angels in heaven.

Now what we have to consider is whether it be true
that the system of Indulgences into contact with which
Luther was brought, differed in any essential par-
ticulars from our modern system. This is necessary,
because the charge brought against the Catholic
Church as justifying Luther's revolt from her obedi-
ence was, in its original and ancient form, that Indul-
gences were permissions to commit sin, or at least
pretended remissions of the guilt of sin, sold in the
most barefaced way, over the counter, so to speak, for
sums of money, amidst degrading accompaniments.
We have partially succeeded in convincing modern and
more enlightened non-Catholics that this is by no
means a true account of our teaching and have caused
them to remodel the charge, which, as it nowadays
mostly runs, is that we have altered our system from
what it was in the days of Luther; that then ii cer-
tainly pretended to be a sale of forgiveness for money,
but that now, in deference to the outcry against such
an enormity, we have revised it and cast it into a more
suitable form. This, however, is not the fact. Any
enlightened inquirer after truth can easily discover
that in offering an Indulgence in return for alms to a
good work Leo X. was acting in no way differently
from the practice of the Church before or since his
time. It has always been the right and the privilege
of the Pope not only to grant and proclaim In-
dulgences, but also, in dispensing these spiritual favors
to stimulate and reward charitable contributions, to
designate, if he so pleases, some particular object to
which they may be applied, as Leo X. did to carry on
the sacred and splendid work of completing the erec-
tion of St. Peter's Basilica which "of temples old or
altars new" now stands alone in "majesty and beauty
with nothing like to it, worthiest of God, the holy and
true." So far, then, we have discovered no impropriety
in the Pope's action.

The bull which Leo X. issued, granting a plenary

Luther and Indulgences 71

Indulgence to all Christendom, reached Germany in
15 15. For the preaching of this Indulgence in Ger-
many that country was divided into three parts, with
only one of which we need to concern ourselves. For
the district comprising the whole of Saxony and
Brandenburg this commission was divided between the
guardian of the Franciscans of Mentz and Albert of
Brandenburg, the newly installed archbishop of the
diocese. But the guardian of the Franciscans declin-
ing to act, the entire commission passed into the hands
of the archbishop, whose office it was to see that the
Indulgence was effectually made known in his district
and to collect the alms of the pious donors. Albert was
a young man of distinguished family, only twenty-four
at the time of his appointment. He was under the
usual obligation of paying the fees for his pallium,
which amounted to no less a sum than thirty thousand
gold florins. That there should have been such fees
is quite intelligible, for the Holy See with its vast staff
of officials for the conduct of a world-wide business
must be supported, and it is right that those for whose
benefit they are established should contribute to their
upkeep. As it was not customary for the archbishops
to pay the fees for the pallium out of their private
sources, they had to be levied on the faithful of the
diocese. But this had been done twice within ten years
for the immediate predecessors of Albert of Branden-
burg, Archbishops Berthold and Uriel. To raise the
sum a third time within a short interval seemed im-
possible without assistance. Wherefore, in order to
afford relief to his flock, Archbishop Albert, by repre-
senting to the Pope the greatness of the crushing
burdens on the revenues of the See, obtained leave to
retain a portion of the proceeds of the papal indulgence
in his province toward the payment of his debt. This
fact suffices, in Dr. Grone's opinion, to clear the arch-
bishop from the reproach of avarice cast at him by
Protestant writers, who have also not failed to impute
all sorts of unworthy motives to him for making choice
of the Dominican, John Tetzel, as his chief sub-com-
missioner, or quaestor, in preaching the Indulgence.

72 The Facts About Luther

Archbishop Albert proceeded with the greatest
caution in promulgating the Indulgence. He issued a
long document on the occasion and in it he first pre-
scribes to the preachers and their assistants the mode
in which they are to conduct themselves and explains
very lucidly the character and provisions of the In-
dulgence. In the second place he points out the nature
of the grace, that is, the spiritual benefits offered. Of
these the first is a "Plenary Indulgence," or plenary
remission of all temporal punishment due to sin by
which the pains of Purgatory are fully forgiven and
blotted out. The term "plenary remission of sin"
should be remarked, as it is on such a phrase that
those fix who strive to make out that an Indulgence is
a forgiveness of the guilt of sin. But the phrase is
usual in grants of Indulgence even to this day, and
means, as the expository clause just given distinctly
declares, a remission of the sin as regards all its tem-
poral punishment. In such a remission a sacramental
absolution is presupposed as having taken away the
guilt and eternal punishment, and it is because, by
supervening on this, the Indulgence takes away like-
wise all the temporal punishment, that is called a
"plenary remission of sins." In the third place the
Instruction of the archbishop lays down the condi-
tions for gaining the Plenary Indulgence. "Although,"
it says, "nothing can be given in exchange which will
be a worthy equivalent for so great a favor, the gift
and grace of God being priceless, still that the faithful
may be the more readily invited to receive it, let them,
after having first made a contrite confession, or at
least having the intention of so doing at the proper
time, visit at least seven churches assigned for this
purpose and in each say devoutly five Our Fathers and
Hail Marys in honor of the Five Wounds of Jesus
Christ, by which our redemption was wrought; or else
one Miserere, to obtain pardon for sins." The italicized
clause is to be specially noticed, as proving conclusively
that there was no thought of granting absolution of
guilt otherwise than through the Sacrament of Pen-
ance. Another condition for the Indulgence was the

Luther and Indulgences 73

contribution towards the building expenses of St.
Peter's, and the archbishop proceeds to prescribe a
suitable amount according to the rank and means of
the contributors. Of the poor he added specially that
"those who have no money must supply by their
prayers and fasts, since the Kingdom of Heaven
should be made open to the poor as much as to the
rich." The scale of offerings or donations laid down
in the Instruction disproves the buying and selling
theory. If it were true that Indulgences were offered
as goods in the market, to be bought and sold, the
assessments should have been uniform for all. The
code of prices disappears, and that of contributions
comes in, when such a scale of assignments made out
according to the rank and means of the donors is borne
in mind. Besides, as we have seen, the notion of price
is expressly repudiated in the archbishop's instruc-
tions.

There are some other points covered in the Instruc-
tion, such as permissions to choose a confessor and
grants to the priest selected of ample faculties to ab-
solve from censures, etc., but it is not necessary to
detail these as they have little bearing on the Indul-
gence controversy. A careful examination of Albert's
Instruction to the preachers of the Indulgence will
show that there is not a thought in it which the Church
at the present day would hesitate to subscribe.

'*We can see now," as Fr. Smith says, ''that this
historical Indulgence, at all events in the form in which
it was conceived by Leo X. and by his Commissioner,
Albert of Brandenburg, did not differ in kin 1, and
hardly in its circumstances, from those to which we
are accustomed at present. We can see, too, that the
intention was to make the preaching of the Indulgence
a sort of 'mission,' as we should now term it, the
people being stirred up by special sermons, prayers
and devotions during the period of one or two weeks,
to take seriosly to heart the affair of their souls, and
to make a good Confession and Communion. Evidently
the aim w^as to associate the erection of a church which
was to be the head of all Churches with a grand re-

74 The Facts About Luther

ligious awakening throughout the world. The Pope,
therefore, and his Commissioners must be acquitted of
the blame which the attacks of Luther have heaped
upon them and this is the point of principal importance
which we have desired to prove."

Archbishop Albert was anxious to promote, as much
as possible, the success of the pious undertaking. To
help him to effect this great end, he selected John
Tetzel, a Dominican friar, to whom he entrusted the
actual preaching of the Indulgence, because he con-
sidered him the likeliest person he knew of on account
of his eminent learning, piety and zeal in the cause of
the Church and the welfare of the Holy See to stir up
the religious fervor and devotion of the people. He
knew that Tetzel had much experience and an uninter-
ruptedly successful career as an Indulgence preacher
during the two previous decades. He knew, moreover,
that he enjoyed the renown of being one of the most
popular and eloquent preachers then in Germany. His
character, temperament, and ability eminently fitted
him to attract large congregations to hear the word of
God, and to move them to contribute generously to the
object advocated. The archbishop's appointment of
Tetzel as his sub-commissioner is tantamount to a
refutation of all the calumnies heaped upon him by his
enemies, who without foundation alleged he disregard-
ed utterly the injunctions given him and perverted the
good purpose of the Indulgence into a downright
scandal.

Tetzel, on the confirmation of his appointment, en-
tered on his duties with his accustomed energy, activ-
ity, and zeal. What he announced everywhere through-
out his district and on all occasions to his hearers, was
in the main, be it remembered, the same doctrine as
Luther quite clearly and correctly set forth regarding
indulgences in a sermon on the subject which he
preached in 1516. He, like all theologians before and
since his day, was careful to point out, as Grisar re-
marks, ''that an Indulgence was to be considered merely
as a remission of the temporal punishment due to sin,
but not of the actual guilt of sin. He declared, quite

Luther and Indulgences 75

rightly, that the erection of the Church of St. Peter was
a matter of common interest to the whole Christian
world, and that the donations toward it were to be
looked upon as part of the pious undertakings and good
works which were always required by the Church as
one of the conditions for gaining an Indulgence. At
the same time, in accordance with the teaching and
practice of the Church, he demanded of all, as an es-
sential preparation for the Indulgence, conversion and
change of heart together with a good confession."
(Grisar i, p. 328 and 328.)

Towards the end of 15 17, Tetzel, after having
preached the Indulgence with signal success at Leipsic,
Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Berlin and other places, ar-
rived at Juterbock, a small town, only a few miles
distant from Wittenberg. Into Wittenberg itself Tetzel
did not enter, but the inhabitants, having heard of the
reputation of the popular preacher, went off in great
numbers to listen to his wonderful sermons. The very
students in the new University, where Luther was one
of the professors, deserted the lecture-halls to hear the
celebrated friar. The enthusiastic reception accorded
to Tetzel augured well for the success of his mission.
Some of those who used to frequent Luther's confes-
sional were among the crowds who went to Juterbock
and they came back, it was said, refusing to give up
their sins. When Luther exhorted and rebuked them,
they showed him the Indulgences they had received
from Tetzel and told him they had bought permission
to continue in their sins, whilst nevertheless assured
of immunity from guilt and punishment. This is the
traditional story that has for long done service against
the Church, but as Fr. Smith aptly remarks, "a very
decisive argument entitles us to dismiss it at once.
Luther, as we are about to see, presently framed his
indictment against Tetzel and it does not, remember,
contain a word of suggestion that the latter undertook
to forgive future sins. Presumedly what happened
was much more simple. Those who were wont to at-
tend Luther's confessional at Wittenberg, on this oc-
casion went to the neighboring town to gain the In-

76 The Facts About Luther

dulgence. If Luther was already set against the doc-
trine of Indulgences, the natural effect of such an in-
cident would be to stir the bile of so excitable a person,
and that this was in reality his doctrinal position at the
time is clear from a serm.on which he forthwith de-
livered at the Castle Church. For in it he denounced
not only Tetzel, but the formalism into which the sys-
tem of Indulgences had degenerated, as well as the
very doctrine itself which the Catholic Church holds
still as she ever has held. It cannot be proved from
Scripture, he says, that Divine Justice demands of the
sinner any other penance or satisfaction save reforma-
tion of heart. He denied that satisfaction was part of
the sacrament of penance. He denied that anything
beyond contrition was needed for the remission of sin.
This denial of temporal punishment for sin and the
necessity of it as satisfaction for sin of course left no
place for any Indulgence or commutation of it. As
he denied the Indulgence to be of any avail to the liv-
ing, he also declared it to be fruitless when applied to
the dead. He maintained that even after receiving the
sacrament of penance, the gaining of an Indulgence
plunged the Christian back into the filth of his sin.
With tirades against the schoolmen, he urged his hear-
ers to disregard Indulgences, and give any alms they
had to spare, not to the building of St. Peter's, but to
the poor.'' The famous sermon that opened the war
on the Church is a specimen of Luther's style. There
is no accurate reasoning, no grasp of the subject, but
plenty of violent declamation. Tetzel's reply was the
plain, distinct utterance of a theologian. Luther's
retort was characteristic: 'T laugh at your words as
I do at the braying of an ass; instead of water I rec-
ommend to you the juice of the grape; and instead of
fire, inhale, my friend, the smell of a roast goose. I am
at Wittenberg. I, Doctor Martin Luther, make it
known to all inquisitors of the faith, bullies and rock-
splitters, that I enjoy here abundant hospitality, an
open house, a v/ell-supplied table, and marked atten-
tion: thanks to the liberality of our duke and prince,
the Elector of Saxony."

Luther and Indulgences 77

Can any man believe sucli a one to be raised up by-
God to guide men in the way of salvation?

This attack on the Indulgence-preacher and the doc-
trine of Indulgences was in a short time ctfterwards
followed up by a document in which Luther formulated
his new creed and embodied his changed view-points
and singular opinions. Although he had promised his
bishop, who was aware of his peculiar views, that he
would not publish for general notice his new-fangled
notions on Indulgences, Luther, with a hypocrisy and
instability that does not generally rank as a mark of
sanctity or divine mission, nevertheless did publish
them, for forthwith he prevailed on the porter of his
monastery to affix on the doors of the Castle church
his famous Theses, ninety-five in number, mostly bear-
ing on Indulgences, but scarcely one raising a solid
objection. This occurred on the eve of All Saints 15 17,
when the Castle church began the celebration of its
titular feast. The yearly commemorative services
naturally drew a vast concourse of devout worshippers.
Time and place lent themselves to a wide publication
of the Saxon monk's novel doctrines. Beyond this
challenge to all opposers to meet him in the arena of
theological disputation, there was nothing extraordi-
nary in the incident. When we consider that the custom
of publicly challenging scholars to learned disputations
was in accordance with the custom of the times, v/e
fail to find in the nailing of his Theses to the church
notice-boards that act of ''exceptional" and ''heroic
courage" over which many of his friends are still wont
to go into ecstacy, nor do we think that the man him-
self was in the least conscious at the time how far the
ball he set a rolling would develop into an avalanche.
He was simply availing himself of a custom among
scholars of those days to play a crafty game. Relying
on his skill in debate, he looked forward to a victory
over Tetzel and to an opening for commencing the w.ir
against some abuses he heard of connected with the
preaching of the Indulgence. He was much disap-
pointed that no one came forward to dispute the ques-
tions he had raised, and he was much hurt to find his

78 The Facts About Luther

friends and intimates very silent about the matter. "The
ninety-five sledge-hammer strokes delivered at the
grossest ecclesiastical abuse of the age," as Lindsay,
the non-Catholic writer, calls Luther's Theses, terrified
nobody. They only emphasized the boldness and rash-
ness of their author in abandoning teachings he once
firmly held and in attacking the doctrines of a world-
wide institution like the Catholic Church.

The well-instructed Catholic who examines Luther's
theses will discover at once some erroneous, some in-
consistent with others, some merely satirical cuts at the
Holy See, some are merely puerile. For the most part
they are full of contradictions and obscurities, and
lack precision in expression to such an extent as to
show lamentable deficiency in theological training.
Lindsay, a non-Catholic and an admirer of Luther,
declares rightly; "The Theses are not a reasoned
treatise;" and Beard, another non-Catholic, says:
"They impress the reader as thrown together somewhat
in haste rather than showing carefully digested thought
and deliberate theological intention ; they bear him out
one moment into the audacity of rebellion and then
carry him back to the obedience of conformity."
(Beard 218, 219.)

The tone in which the Theses were written indicates
that they were not, as he declared, advanced as tenta-
tive propositions, but that they were considered by
their author as settled beforehand and irrefutable. In
a letter he wrote at this time to the Bishop of Branden-
burg he declared his absolute submission and his readi-
ness to follow the Catholic Church in everything, but,
at the same time, he wanted it to be known quite clearly
that, "in his opinion nothing could be advanced against
his theses, neither from Holy Scripture, Catholic Doc-
trine or Canon Law, with the exception of the utter-
ances of some few canonists, who spoke without proofs
and of some of the scholastic Doctors who cherished
similar views, but who also were unable to demonstrate
anything." Though his language in some of the theses
is comparatively guarded he, nevertheless, puts for-
ward certain opinions which shov/ plainly enough that

Luther and Indulgences 79

he means to go straight into combat with the Cathohc
Church. Many of the theses, says Fr. Grisar, (Vol. 1,
p. 331) "from the theological point of view, go far
beyond a mere opposition to the abuse of Indulgencs.
Luther, stimulated by contradiction, had, to some ex-
tent, altered his previous views on the nature of In-
dulgences and brought them more into touch with the
fundamental principles of his erroneous theology."

"A practical renunciation of Indulgences, as it had
been held up to that time, is to be found in the theses,
where Luther states that Indulgences have no value
in God's sight, but are merely to be regarded as the
remission by the Church of the canonical punishment.
(Theses 5, 20, 21, etc.) This destroys the theological
meaning of Indulgences, for they had always been
considered as a remission of the temporal punishment
of sin, but as a remission which held good before the
Divine Judgement-seat (cp. Nos. 19, 20 and 21 of the
41 propositions of Luther condemned in 1520). In
some of the theses (58-60) Luther likewise attacks the
generally accepted teaching with regard to the Church's
treasury of grace, on which Indulgences are based.
Erroneous views concerning the state of purgation of
the departed occur in some of the propositions (18, 19,
29). Others appear to contain what is theologically
incorrect and connected with his opinion regarding
grace and justification; this opinion is not, however,
clearly set forth in the list of tiheses."

"Many of the statements are irritating, insulting and
cynical observations on Indulgences in general, no dis-
tinction being made between what v/as good and what
was perverted. Thus, for example, Thesis 66 de-
clares "the treasures of Indulgences"' to be simply nets
"in which the wealth of mankind is caught." Others
again scoff and mock at the authority of the Church,
as, for example, Thesis 86, "Why does not the Pope,
who is as rich as Croesus, build St. Peter's with his
own money, rather than with that of poor Christians?"
Now the Pope was not building a private chapel for
himself, but a basilica for the whole Christian world.
Another thesis declared : "Christians should be taught

80 The Facts About Luther

that he who gives to the poor or assists the needy, does
better than he who purchases Indulgences." It was
the old argument of the traitor Judas, who asked:
''Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred
pence and given to the poor? Now he said this not
because he cared for the poor." John XII, 5, 6.

This brief sketch of Luther's theses gives the reader
a slight conception of their nature, aim and scope.
Ostensibly they were levelled against the alleged abuses
of the papal Indulgences, but attacks on the doctrine
itself, as v/ell as on the authority of the Pope were so
insidiously and maliciously intermingled therein, that
it was evident to the discerning that they were not
proposed, as he claimed, ''out of love and zeal for the
ascertaining of the truth."

At first many of the learned of the day were in-
clined to regard Luther's challenge as one of the petty
monastic intellectual squabbles which Germany fre-
quently produced. Tetzel, however, did not consider
the matter as a mere academic dispute, as Luther al-
leged, for "defining and elucidating truth." With his
clear mind he saw plainly that the discussion which
Luther wished to arouse involved a deep and signifi-
cant attack covertly made against the whole peniten-
tial system of the Church, its teaching, its practice,
and its authority. He recognized, moreover, the ex-
tremes Luther would be driven to by his false princi-
ples and the fatal results they were bound to produce
on the masses. In the tone of a prophet he declared
that many, on account of Luther's novel opinions,
would contemn the authority and power of the Pope
and the Roman See, would intermit the works of
sacramental satisfaction, would no longer believe their
pastors and teachers, but would explain, every one
for himseH, the Sacred Scriptures according to private
fancy and whim and believe just what they might
choose, to the great detriment of souls throughout
Christendom, and the integrity of the Christian deposit
of faith.

Luther's Theses were so pointedly directed against
the doctrine of Indulgences and against the preachers,

Luther and Indulgences 81

that it was impossible for Tetzel to pass them over in
silence. However, before taking action on so critical
an occasion he sought the counsel of his archbishoo
and of his old friend and former professor, Dr. Wim-
pina. They directed him to reply to Luther's ninety-
five theses; and presently there appeared a set, or
rather two sets of theses, Anti-theses they were called ;
one set of One Hundred and Six Theses being a
counter statement of the doctrine of Indulgences, the
other of Fifty Theses on the Papal power to grant
them. These theses were drawn up for Tetzel by his
old professor and showed a thorough understanding
of the doctrine of Indulgences.

Tetzel assumed all responsibility for the propositions
which in the clearest and most lucid manner set forth
the true Catholic doctrine of Indulgences and of the
absolute necessity of repentance, confession and satis-
faction required for the pardon of sin. These proposi-
tions are so forcible that we do not knov/ where a
theologian could go for a more satisfying defence of
Indulgences against current Protestant difficulties.
They affirmed that, though an Indulgence exempts the
sinner from the vindicatory penalties of the church,
it leaves him just as much bound as ever to submit to
her medicinal ones ; that it does not derogate from the
merits of Christ, since its whole efficacy is due to the
atoning passion of Christ; as also that the Pope has
power only by means of suffrage to apply the benefits
of an Indulgence to the souls in purgatory. JMoreover,
to say that the Pope cannot absolve the least venial
sin is erroneous ; and equally so to deny that all vicars
of Christ have the same power as Peter had ; rather
to assert that Peter, in the matter of Indulgences, had
more power than they, is both heretical and blasphem-
ous.

The descriptions of the Indulgence-preacher as given
by Hecht, \'ogcl, Hoffmann and other i)artisan writers
are so full of obloquy founded on garbled quotations
and falsified facts, that we are prepared to fin 'I in
Tetzel's Theses the brutal, reckless and ignorant utter-
ances of a buffoon. This is wide of the truth. What

82 The Facts About Luther

we do find is a calm and scientific theological state-
ment, quite remarkable for its force and lucidity. His
Theses are a luminous refutation of Luther's. They
were so ably and brilliantly defended that about the
end of April, 1518, the University of Frank fort-on-the-
Oder, in recognition of the Dominican's learning, con-
ferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity.

Tetzel thoroughly grasped both the nature and the
complexity of his duties in the confutation of Luther's
errors. Sobriety pervades every line of his proposi-
tions and dignified self-repression marks all his utter-
ances in the defense of truth. He was made the victim
of many outrageous charges, but there is no trace of
irritation in his speech. Without sarcasm and without
pronouncing anything personally offensive to his op-
ponent, he takes up the doctrinal points one after an-
other and in serious, enlightened, and dignified lan-
guage, as becomes the teacher of God's truth, explains
and defends them with clearness, force, and directness.
It is only as he draws to the close of his marvelous
confutation that he deigns to notice the charges so un-
justly flung at him. Then he refers to them in the
fewest and most becoming words. He says: "For
one who has never heard them to declare in public
Theses that the Indulgence-preachers employ scandal-
ous language before the people, and take up more time
in explaining Indulgences than in expounding the
Gospel, is to scatter lies picked up from others, to spread
fictions in place of truths, and to show oneself light-
minded and credulous ; and is to fall into mischievous
error." Here we think we have a true account of what
happened. There were plenty of mischief-makers to
concoct scandalous stories if they were likely to be
listened to and Luther had shown a readiness to wel-
come this kind of slander, if not to add to it from his
own imagination, and the poor Indulgence-preacher
was the sufferer.

Luther would not be silenced. The overweaning
opinion he entertained of himself and of his own
abilities made him set at naught every correct and ac-
cepted exposition of the authority of tradition and the

Luther and Indulgences 83

binding force of the teaching of the Church. The
defenders of truth, no matter how learned or ap-
proved they might be, were all despised when they
were not in agreement with his newly formulated view-
points on the question of Indulgences. He scoffed at
all defense of the right and the true, and, as he said
in his usual uncouth way, "he cared as little for it as
for the braying of an ass." Such was the way in
which he always endeavored to expose his adversaries,
however exalted they might be in station or venerable
for character and learning, to the low merriment of
the people ; and it was a very important element in at-
tracting the rabble to his side. The mob is ever ready
to hail with delight any one who champions freedom
from the requirements of Christianity. Some of his
friends, among whom were learned theologians, saw
with sorrow the downward course he was pursuing
and begged him to discontinue his antagonism to the
Church's teachings and practices. All their kindly ad-
monitions were disregarded and he continued even
more than before to reprobate, denounce and mis-
represent the Church's doctrines and usages.

It is interesting to note that later on, in looking back
over the days that were gone, Luther had the audacity
to state that ''he hardly knew what an Indulgence was."
In two different places in his pamphlet entitled Hans
Worst, written about 1541, when he was blinded by
rage against the Qiurch, he solemnly declares that,
"As truly as Our Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed me
I did not know what an Indulgence was." This state-
ment, notwithstanding the sacred affirmation with
which he introduces it, is to say the least, of very
doubtful veracity. To express himself in this way is,
however, rather a poor compliment for a Professor
and Doctor of Theology to pay to himself, nor can it
be considered as very prudent, that a man should talk
about and inveigh against things of which he confesses
his ignorance. Indeed, he could hardly have meant
what he said had he recalled at the moment the teach-
ings and sermons of his earlier days, when he held and
asserted with absolute conviction the mind of the

84 The Facts About Luther

Church on the doctrine of Indulgences. If Luther,
however, was really ignorant of the matter he had
plenty of opportunities of learning the unadulterated
teaching of the Church. He could have been accom-
modated within the walls of his own University. The
nature of Indulgences was clearly defined in ordinary
manuals for the use of the clergy, then in print, such
as the "Discipuliis de Eriiditione CJiristi Fidelium," is-
sued at Cologne in 1504, and many other learned theo-
logical works. Luther, however, needed no enlighten-
ment on the subject. He knew what an Indulgence
was, its nature, its authority, its place in the spiritual
order, and was quite familiar with its practice in the
Church. He knew that an Indulgence was simply a
remission in whole or in part, through the superabund-
ant merits of Jesus Christ and His saints, of the tem-
poral punishment due to God on account of sin after
the guilt and eternal punishment have been remitted
in the Sacrament of Penance. He knew that it gave
no license to commit sin of any kind or in any form.
He knew that no abuse could affect an Indulgence in
itself, that an Indulgence is legitimate apart from an
abuse, and that it would be a sacrilegious crime in any
one whomsoever, from the Pope down to the most
humble layman, to be concerned in buying or selling
Indulgences. He knew that Indulgences were never
bartered for money in Germany or elsewhere for sins
yet to be committed. He knew they were not market-
able commodities and that no traffic or sale of Indul-
gences was ever authorized or countenanced by the
authorities of the Church. Pie knew all this as well
as any enlightened member of the Church in his day
for he studied the whole ins-and-outs of the matter
in his earlier career. His onslaught on Indulgences
was not made from any lack of knowledge of their
meaning and value.

Luther had a purpose in view and all his attacks on
Indulgences were intended only as a cloak to conceal
the real scheme he nursed in his rebellious heart. He
might, if he would, help to correct whatever wrong
was noticeable at the time, but instead of aiding the

Luther and Indulgences 85

cause of right, he wilfully and maliciously preferred
to profit by the blunders of some imprudent underlings
to advance his nefarious designs which aimed at noth-
■ ing less than the weakening and eventual destruction
of the power and authority of the Holy See. He now
began adroitly enough to throw the blame of whatever
irregularities existed on the doctrine itself, not only
to make Indulgences odious, but indirectly to discredit
the Pope who granted them. By a process of false
reasoning he persuaded himself to think, ''that Indul-
gences are not of faith, because not taught in the Bible,
not taught by Christ and His Apostles ; they emanate.'
he said, ''only from the Pope." He thought that this
pronouncement, which included the exclusive value of
the Bible as the rule of faith, was incontrovertible.
He little dreamt, however, that in advancing this
erroneous doctrine he was passing sentence on him-
self as an apostate and a heretic. He must now be
compelled to come out more in the open and declare
himself more explicitly. To do this it was necessary
to prove that besides the truths explicitly declared in
Holy Writ there are other truths in the Church which
its members are equally bound to believe and that they
comprise all those doctrines relating to faith which
are defined as such by the Apostolic See.

Much of the greater part of the guffaws Luther, at
this time, received from princes, nobles, robber knights,
debauched scholars and the mob, was due to the in-
sidious attacks he made on the authority of the Holy
See and its legitimate head. Tetzel was keen enough
to notice this and he determined in the interests of
truth and respect for legitimate ecclesiastical authority
to meet the situation. Accordingly, as noted before,
he issued about the end of April, 15 18, fifty Theses on
the power of the Pope to show "that he alone pos-
sesses the right to decide the true sense and meaning
of Scripture: that what is true and of faith about
Indulgences, only the Pope can decide ; that the Church
has many Catholic truths which are neither expressly
declared in the canon of Scripture, nor explicitly stated
by the Church Fathers; that all doctrines relating to

86 The Facts About Luther

faith and defined as such by the ApostoHc See, are to
be reckoned among Catholic truths, whether or not
they are contained expHcitly in the Bible." These
propositions were strictly in the spirit of the scholastic
theology in vogue at the time, and served to raise the
contention to the plane of principle.

Luther was now challenged to come out in the open
and declare himself clearly on the Pope's authority in
matters of faith and practice. He at once perceived
what a stumbling block Tetzel had thrown in his way.
He did not attempt to dispute or contradict Tetzel's
Fifty Theses. Had he done so he must have plainly
acknowledged himself a heretic, cut himself off from
all escape and had no other choice left than that of
either being punished as a heretic or making a recanta-
tion. As matters stood this would have been pre-
mature, would have spoiled all, would have ruined him
and his cause. He was not prepared as yet to enter
finally on the terrible tragedy of open rebellion against
the Church of God.

Tetzel, as the Dublin Rez'iew further remarks, had not
designated Luther personally as a heretic. But Luther
chose to assume that he had done so and forthwith let
loose a storm against Tetzel of such brutal and malig-
nant invective as Luther alone was capable of. Adopt-
ing the tone of an injured man, a man shamefully mis-
understood, he filled Germany with hypocritical as-
severations of his orthodoxy and his devotion to the
See of Peter. All his party followed in the pseudo
Liberator's wake. The heathen-minded humanists,
with Ulrich Von Hutten, the notoriously unprincipled
libertine, at their head, were especially active in de-
nouncing and maligning Tetzel. They singled him out
as a butt of their ribald satire, holding him up to
scorn and execration as the very impersonation of
every imaginable abuse and scandal. They used every
conceivable means known to the abandoned and ignoble
to besmirch the character, reputation, and influence of
Tetzel. They proclaimed everywhere to ignorant and
unthinking crowds that ''the avaricious monk" as they
designated him, "sold grace for money at the highest

Luther and Indulgences 87

price he could," that he used offensive statements res-
pecting the Blessed \^irgin, and that he magnified the
effects of the Indulgence by the use of unseemly com-
parisons, all to ring the money into the papal coffer
in the hope of freeing souls from purgatory's suffer-
ings." They put the most horrid blasphemies into his
mouth, so horrid that we would be ashamed to repro-
duce them here. Plenty of mud was flung at Tetzel
and unfortunately much of it at the time stuck and
has done service ever since. The story of Tetzel and
his chest, along with many others of a still more
profane description, are still told to the incredulous
although they have been time and again refuted. Schol-
ars of repute nowadays dare not repeat or reassert the
absurd infamies. The testimony against such a course
is too overwhelming to risk exposure and defeat.

The campaign of lies, slander and calumny inaugur-
ated and carried on unceasingly by Luther and his
quarrelsome allies, preyed upon the sensitive spirit of
the gifted preacher and gradually his health gave away.
Wounded by the rude and unchristian treatment he
received at the hands of unscrupulous enemies, and
deeply affected by the sight of the mischief which had
been wrought by the religious revolution he was the
first to foresee, he retired to the pious seclusion of his
monastery, where after a short while he died, not in
disgrace, as his malefactors allege, but from a broken
heart due to the persecution he had suffered. His
death occurred August ii, 15 19, and he was buried
before the High Altar of the Dominican Church at
Leipzic.

"Tetzel could not have set up a better monument
to his own character," writes Dr. Grone, "than he did
in the grief and affliction which hastened his end. The
ruin of the Church, the wild infidelity and unspeak-
able disorders, which the triumph of Luther must
needs entail on Germany — this was the worm that
gnawed his vital thread. It broke his heart to be
forced to see how the sincere champions of the old
Church truths were left alone, were slandered, despised
and misunderstood by their own party, while the

88 The i:^ acts About Luther

mockers and revilers of the immutable doctrine won
applause on all sides."

"History," says the Catholic Encyclopedia, "presents
few characters more unfortunate and pathetic than
Tetzel. Among his contemporaries the victim of the
most corrosive ridicule, every foul charge laid at his
door, every blasphemous utterance placed in his mouth,
a veritable literature of fiction and fable built about
his personalit}^ in modern history held up as a prover-
bial mountebank and oily harlequin, denied even the
support and sympathy of his own allies — Tetzel had
to await the light of modern critical scrutiny, not only
for a moral rehabilitation, but also for vindication as
a soundly trained theologian and a monk of irreproach-
able deportment." (Paulus, "Johann Tetzel," Mainz,
1899; Hermann, "Johann Tetzel," Frankfort, 1882;
Grone, "Tetzel und Luther," Soest, i860.)

To describe the Dominican friar as the cause of the
whole movement which began in 15 17 is, in view of the
facts, the merest legend. "Notwithstanding the ef-
forts," as Grisar says, "which Luther made to repre-
sent the matter in this or a similar light, it has been
clearly proved that his own spiritual development was
the cause or at least the principal cause. Other fac-
tors co-operated more or less. His false ideas on grace
and justification and good works, and his determina-
tion to put a stop to the abuses connected with Indul-
gences, led him in 1517 to make a general attack, even
though partly veiled, on the whole ecclesiastical system
of Indulgences."

If we keep this in view we can easily understand
what Luther wrote to his dying antagonist in the hope
of affording him some consolation when he was suf-
fering keenly from the reproaches the Reformer
heaped upon him. In this letter Luther says : ''You
need not trouble and distress yourself, for the matter
did not begin with you. This child, indeed, had quite
another father." (De Wette, Seidemann, 6, 18.) He
himself was that father. He started the controversy,
being, says his pupil Oldecop, "by nature proud and
audacious." At the outset of the trouble it was stated

Luther and Indulgences 89

that as soon as Luther heard from Staiipitz at Grimma
of Tetzel's behavior, he exclaimed: "Please God, I
will knock a hole in his drum." This saying has done
service for the longest time, but no scholar to-day re-
hearses it because it lacks all basis of veritable data.
Luther's rebellion against the Church would, however,
have taken place, if no Indulgence had been promul-
gated or if Tetzel had never been born.

In due time Archbishop Albert submitted Luther's
Theses to his board of consultors at Aschaffenburg
and to the professors of the University of Mayence.
All the examiners gave the Theses long and careful
study. After due deliberation they concluded as a
result of their findings, that the Theses were of an
heretical character and that proceedings against their
author should be taken. A report of their examination
and the conclusions arrived at, together with a copy
of the Theses, were then regularly forwarded to the
Holy See. It will thus be seen that the first judicial
proceeding against Luther did not emanate from
Tetzel, as some authors falsely allege.

This action on the part of the authorities did not
please Luther as he was anxious to continue as long
as possible in good favor with the Pope. Shortly after
he learned of the official proceeding he wrote to his
friend Langus and styled the archbishop and the
others who examined and condemned his proposi-
tions, ''Bufifoons and Earthworms." The calling of
names, as we see, was no trouble to this disappointed
man. Rome was slow and lenient in her action. Per-
haps the Pope was right in favoring delay. Under
date of Trinity Sunday, ]\Iay 30, 15 18, Luther wrote
to Leo X. a letter professing the utmost respect for
His Holiness and declaring that he submitted himself
in the grave circumstances unreservedly to his deci-
sion. With his wonted disingenuousness he said of his
Theses and strange doctrines : 'They are disputations,
not doctrines, not dogmas, set out as usual in an enig-
matical form ; yet could I have foreseen it, I should
certainly have taken part on my side, that they shoul I
be more easv to understand. Were I such a man as

90 The Facts About Luther'

they wish me to appear, and all things had not been
rightly handled by me in the course of disputation, it
could not be that the most illustrious Prince Frederick,
Duke of Saxony, Elector of the Empire, would permit
such a pest in his university, pre-eminent as he is for
his attachment to the Catholic apostolic truth. Where-
fore, most blessed Father, I offer myself prostrate at
the feet of your Holiness and give myself up to you
with all .that I am or have : quicken, slay, call, recall,
approve, reprove, as shall please Thee. It rests with
your Holiness to promote or prevent my undertaking,
to declare it right or wrong. Whatever happens, I
recognize the voice of your Holiness as that of Christ
abiding and speaking in Thee. If I deserve death, I
do not refuse to die." A more complete expression of
submission to the judgment of the Apostolic See could
hardly be formulated, but Luther's actions thereafter
did not correspond with his language. The insincerity
manifested in his letter to Leo X. can be explained only
by the uncommon duplicity^ of his character.

Very shortly after this letter to Leo X., owing to a
variety of circumstances, especially the troubles which
menaced Germany on account of the religious dissen-
sions then existing, Emperor Maximilian formally de-
nounced the agitator to the Holy See. Luther was
imm.ediately cited to appear at Rom.e within sixty days
to answer before judges appointed by His Holiness,
in regard to the doctrines he had put forth. The
Elector of Saxony, the ruling sovereign of the country
to which Luther belonged, in the meantime requested
the Pope to dispense with his personal appearance in
answer to the citation and asked that instead of going
to Rome he might be allowed to answer for himself
before a Cardinal Legate in Germany. Rome con-
sented and Cardinal Cajetan, a man remarkable for his
erudition and greatly beloved by the workingmen of
Rome because he had espoused their cause against the
usurers, was detailed to give Luther a hearing and to
endeavor to call him back from his errors. The
Cardinal met Luther at Augsburg on October ii, 15 18.
All patient and condescending he exhorted Luther to

Luther and Indulgences 91

renounce his errors and to return like a repenting child
to his mother, the Church. Luther professed a willing-
ness to disavow any expressions, if the legate con-
vinced him that they were erroneous, but the Nuncio
was not to be led into any dispute. He told the wilful
man that he was there to receive the renunciation of
his errors, not to, argue. "What error have I taught?"
asked Luther. Cardinal Cajetan presented two errors.
First, "That the merits of Christ are not the treasures
of Indulgences." Second, "That faith alone is sufficient
for salvation." He showed decisions of the Holy See
covering the ground and again called on Luther to re-
nounce his errors. The kind oflices of the Cardinal
were useless and the meeting terminated without ben-
eficial results. Luther, how^ever, asked for a delay
of three days, which was granted. On the morning
following the conversation with the Cardinal, he sent
a protest to his Eminence, declaring that, "he had never
intended to teach anything offensive to Catholic doc-
trine, to the Holy Scriptures, to the authority of the
Fathers or to the decrees of the Pope." Luther did
not wait for the expiration of the time he requested.
He departed from Augsburg in secrecy, and in a few
days afterward, he gave the world another proof of his
duplicity by having affixed to the gate of the Carmelite
monastery where he had lodged, an appeal to the effect
that if he had attacked Indulgences, it was because they
w^ere not enjoined by God. His judges, he averred,
were not to be trusted; he had not gone to Rome, be-
cause, there, where justice once abided, homicide now
dwelt. Finally, he "appealed from the Pope ill-in-
formed to the Pope better-instructed."

One more attempt was made by Rome later on to
settle the matter without coming to extremes. A second
legate w^as sent to Germany. Charles Miltiz, a young
Saxon nobleman in minor orders, who had spent some
years in Rome, was chosen for the office. The appoint-
ment w^as unfortunate and abortive. Miltiz lacked the
prudence, tact, energy and straightforwardness his
difficult mission demanded. He, however, drew from
Luther an act which if it "is no recantation, is at least

92 The Facts About Luther

remarkably like one." (Beard 274.) 'In it he promised
to observe silence if his assailants did the same; com-
plete submission to the Pope; to publish a plain state-
ment to the public advocating loyalty to the Church ;
and to place the whole vexatious cause in the hands of
a delegated bishop." The meeting closed with a banquet
and embraces, tears of joy and a kiss of peace, only to
be disregarded and ridiculed afterwards by Luther.
This interview took place at Altenburg in the begin-
ning of the year 15 19.

Shortly after this meeting on March 3, 15 19, Luther
addressed another letter to the Pope overflowing as
usual with expressions of the greatest loyalty and most
perfect submission. In it, amongst other things, he
"calls God and man to witness that he has never
wished and does not now desire to touch the Roman
Church or the Pope's sacred authority; and that he
acknowledges most explicitly that this Church rules
over all and that nothing in heaven or in earth is
superior to it, save only Jesus Christ our Lord." Only
two weeks before he made this pronouncement calling
God and man to witness his words, he wrote to his
friend Scheurl : 'T have often said that hitherto I have
only been playing. Now at last we shall have to act
seriously against the Roman authority and against
Roman arrogance." (De Wette i, 230.) This detest-
able hypocrisy is further confirmed when ten days
after sending to the Pope the letter of March 3rd, he
declared to his friend Spalatinus: 'T do not mind
telling you, between ourselves, that I am not sure
whether the Pope is Antichrist himself or only his
apostle." (De Wette I, 239.)

A terrible struggle was nov/ going on in Luther. His
mind was divided between his still remaining respect
for ecclesiastical authority on the one hand and his
personal pride and attachment to his own opinions on
the other. At a later period of his life he said of him-
self, that "he was in such a state of mind at this time
as to be almost out of his senses ; that he was scarcely
conscious whether he were awake or asleep: and that
it was not without a severe struggle and great difficulty

Luther and Indulgences 93

that he finally conquered his conviction that he ought
to "hear the Church." As late as the 15th of January,
1520, he wrote to the newly elected Emperor, declaring
that he would die a true and obedient son of the Cath-
olic Church and expressing his willingness to submit
to the decision of all the universities whose impartial-
ity could not be suspected. But in proportion as he
found the authority of the Church and of learned uni-
versities ranged against him, exactly in the same pro-
portion did his adhesion to his own opinions grow more
and more obstinate.

Luther seemed not to be able to free himself from
his errors. As time went on he grew bolder in his
assertions and astonished his friends by advancing even
more daring absurdities. In his advanced system, de-
nying dogma after dogma, there was no longer room
for Indulgences and Confession, nor for Purgatory,
nor for honoring any saint, since there are no saints,
but all remain corrupt for all eternity, only the cor-
ruption is covered by the cloak of Christ's merits.
''Man," he says, "since the fall of our first parents had
not possessed any liberty whatever and that his works,
whether good or bad, were always offensive to God."
He could not see that in denying human liberty he was
expressing an opinion that is not only as false as it is
repugnant to common sense, but oft'ensive not only to
God but his creatures. To secure the support of the
masses, he flattered these by declaring that "all Chris-
tians are priests, all have equal authority to interpret
the Bible for themselves and there is no difference
among the baptized, priest, bishop, pope, except the
offices assigned to some." Nor did he forget the secular
princes, who were impervious to all religious impulses
and whose support he was endeavoring to secure
before his final breach with the Church, for to them
he announced the flattering teaching: "For as much
as the temporal power is ordained of God to punish
the wicked and to protect the good, therefore it must
be allowed to do its work unhindered on the whole
Christian body, without respect to persons, whether it
strike popes, bishops, priests, monks, nuns or whom

94 The Facts About Luther

it will." "The secular power," he maintained, "should
summon a free council" which "should reorganize the
constitution of the Church from- its foundation and
must liberate Germany from the Roman robbers, from
the scandalous, devilish rule of the Romans." *'It is
stated," he adds, "that there is no finer government in
the world than that of the Turks, who have neither a
spiritual nor a secular code of law, but only their
Koran. And it must be acknowledged that there is no
more disagreeable system of rule than ours, with our
Canon Law and our Common Law, whilst no class any
longer obeys either natural reason or the Holy Scrip-
ture."

When this teaching of Luther, given in part only,
is considered, it is easily seen he was no longer a Cath-
olic although he continued to celebrate Mass at Cath-
olic altars and maintained that he was sound in the
faith. No wonder that Duke George, astonished and
provoked at the bold heretical assertions of the in-
solent monk, exclaimed in an angry voice, "This man's
teaching is dangerous." The arbitrating universities
of Cologne and Louvain, together with that of Paris,
condemned his teaching and declared it heretical.
Luther had shortly before looked upon these judges as
"his masters in theology" ; he now called them "mules
and asses, epicurean swine." Rome finally discussed
Luther's new doctrines with patient care and critical
calmness, and was, at last, compelled to denounce them
as ^'eccentric, radical and untenable."

There was a limit to the patience of Leo X. The
gentle and learned Pope pitied the venom, hatred and
indomitable stubbornness and pride of Luther, but
considering the disturbed condition of religious affairs
created in Germany by the agitator's misguided efforts
and the religious pantheistical mysticism his system was
engendering, he was compelled to act in the interest
of peace and truth. He accordingly issued a Bull,
written in a tone rather of paternal affliction than of
just severity, in which the unfortunate man's errors
were denounced in forty-one propositions, some of
which were qualified as evidently heretical and others

Luther and Indulgences 95

as rash and scandalous. "Imitating the clemency of
the Almighty," Leo says, "who wills not the death of
a sinner, but that he should be converted and live, we
shall forget all injuries done to us and the Apostolic
See, and we shall do all we can to make him give up
his errors. By the depths of God's mercy and the
blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, shed for the Redemp-
tion of man and the foundation of the Church, we
expect and pray Luther and his followers to cease
disturbing the peace, the unity, and the power of the
Church." Thus speaks the generous heart of the Pope
who apparently suffers while he is compelled to chas-
tise a rebellious son and declare him excommunicated
unless he should retract his errors at the expiration
of sixty days.

Luther's pride would not suffer him to submit. His
separation from the Church, her doctrine, her public
worship and her constitution was complete. Branded
now as a heretic, his wrath no longer knew any bounds
of moderation. He immediately issued an insolent
diatribe entitled, "Against the Execrable Bull of Anti-
christ/' "At length," he says, "thanks to the zeal of
my friends, I have seen this bat in all its beauty. In
truth, I know not whether the Papists are joking. This
must be the work of John Eck, the man of lies and
iniquities, the accursed heretic ... I maintain that the
author of this Bull is Antichrist : I curse it as a blas-
phemy against the Son of God ... I trust that every
Christian who accepts this Bull will suffer the torments
of hell . . . See how I retract, daughter of a Soap
Bull ... It is said that the donkey sings badly, simply
because he pitches his voice on too high a key. Cer-
tainly, this Bull would sound more agreeable, were
its blasphemies not directed against heaven. Where
are you, emperors, kings and princes of the earth, that
you tolerate the hellish voice of Antichrist? Leo X.
and you, the Roman Cardinals, I tell you to your
faces . . . Renounce your satanic blasphemies against
Jesus Christ."

Luther followed up this imprecation and invective
on Rome by publicly burnings on the loth day of

96 The Facts About Luther

December, 1520, at the eastern gate of Wittenburg,
opposite the Church of the Holy Cross, in the presence
of many students, who jeered and sang ribald drink-
ing songs, the Bull of Leo X., and all his writings, to-
gether with the works of St. Thomas Aquinas and other
Catholic theologians. On the day after this contemp-
tuous exhibition, Luther preached to the people and
said : "Yesterday I burned in the public square the
devilish works of the Pope; and I wish that it was
the Pope, that is, the Papal See, that was consumed.
If you do not separate from Rome, there is no salva-
tion for your souls."

The Gospel of Luther is now set up against the
Gospel of the good and gentle Jesus. Introduced in
hatred of the Pope and with the vain promise of salva-
tion to all who abandon him whom the Master ap-
pointed to preserve the unity and the well-being of
His Church, it went on its course of protestation with
little avail, for the Church of Christ still remains and
the office of Peter to instruct in sound doctrine still
continues and will to the end of time.

Luther, whilst he was presumably a member of the
Church, denounced Indulgences in the bitterest terms,
much to the delight of all his followers. But when
from a reformer he becomes a revolutionist and with-
out credentials or authority started his own church, he
has nothing to say concerning the notorious scandals
that disgraced its career. Pie was, on the contrary,
most kindly disposed toward it. As every student of
history knows he tried his hand at dispensations and
granted many of which the Catholic Church was never
guilty. Thus, for example, he dispensed himself and
Katherine Yon Bora from their vows of celibacy ; he
dispensed every husband from his fidelity to marital
vows in his shameless utterance in a public sermon,
"si nolit domina, veniat ancilla." (Sermon De Matri-
monio.) He gave a dispensation to Philip of Hesse to
commit bigamy and his reward was four "fuder" of
wine and a protection of Protestantism. Bucer, who
was a party to that heathenish, infamous concession,
admits that *'the whole Reformation was one grand

Luther and Indulgences 97

indulgence for libertinism." Here are his words:
"The greater part of the people seem only to have
embraced the Gospel in order to shake off the yoke of
discipline and the obligation of fasting and penance,
which rested upon them in popery, and tliat they may
live according to their own pleasure, enjoying their
lusts and lawless appetites without control. That was
the reason they lent a willing ear to the teaching of
justification by faith alone and not by good works, for
the latter of which they had no relish." (Bucer De
Regn. I, c I, 4.) Bucer's words ought to bring the
blush of shame to the face of all who in the hour of
the blasphemy of despair attempt to vilify and mis-
represent the Church of God. They ought to remem-
ber also that Luther's special brand of dispensations
are not altogether out of market yet.

In the theological lectures on the Psalms, which
Luther, when still a Catholic, delivered as Professor in
the years 15 13-15 16, he described from time to time
the peculiarities and distinguishing features of heretics.
**The principal sin of heretics is their pride," he says.
*Tn their pride they insist on their own opinions...
Frequently they serve God with great fervor and they
do not intend any evil; but they serve God according
to their own will . . . Even when refuted, they are
ashamed to retract their errors and to change their
words . . . They think they are guided directly by
God . . . The things that have been established for
centuries and for which so many martyrs have suffered
death, they begin to treat as doubtful questions . . .
They interpret (the Bible) according to their own
heads and their own particular views and carry their
own opinions into it.'

This description leaves nothing to be desired. Luther
tells most accurately the traits of the false prophets
and lying teachers whom the God of truth would have
his followers avoid. Think you, did the unfortunate
man realize when he described the characteristics of
those who cause dissensions in the Church and among
the brethren, that he was drawing his own portrait in
later times? If he did, then he should have remem-

98

The Facts About Luther

bered the words of the great St. Paul: "I beseech
you, brethren, to mark them who cause dissensions and
offences contrary to the doctrine which you have
learned and to avoid them." (Romans XVL 17.)

CHAPTER IV.
Luther and Justification.

THERE are few tenets of the Catholic Church so
little understood, or so grossly misrepresented by
her adversaries, as her doctrine regarding Justification
or Sanctification. Many, outside the Church, make the
mistake of supposing that the Catholic doctrine ascribes
a justifying and saving efficacy to a mere intellectual
submission to Church authority, and a mere external
compliance with its precepts without reference to the
interior disposition of the soul toward God, or recog-
nition of the merits of Christ as the source of all the
supernatural excellence and value of good works.
Most Protestants are under the impression that the
Catholic substitutes the merits of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, the merits of the Saints, and his own merits, as
an independent ground of justification, in lieu of the
merits of Christ. They believe, moreover, that merit
is ascribed to mere external works, such as fasting,
assisting at mass, and performing ceremonial rites or
penitential labors, on account of the mere physical na-
ture, and extent of the works done, without reference
to the motive from which they proceed. These, and
other calumnies or rather blasphemies of a similar
nature, are frequently and confidently repeated in
popular sermons and controversial tracts until non-
Catholics come to reject what they suppose to be Catho-
lic doctrine, but which is frequently only a rejection
of opinions attributed by mistake to the Catholic
Church.

What our adversaries allege on the question of jus-
tification is not only a misapprehension, but a travesty
on genuine Catholic teaching and the underlying pur-
pose of the misrepresentations of the true doctrine of
the Church is to prevent, if possible, all who are not
of the household of faith from ascertaining with cer-
tainty the exact and complete sense of the doctrine

100 The Facts About Luther

Christ has commanded us to beheve and the law He
has commanded us to keep under penalty of eternal
condemnation. The sooner the opinions attributed by
malice or by mistake to the Catholic Church are ex-
amined carefully and candidly in relationship with
genuine Catholic doctrine, the better for the interests
of souls who long for the truth and who earnestly
desire the spread of the Kingdom of God on earth.
To all, who hold the views we have alluded to and who
labor under a misapprehension of the Church's teach-
ing regarding the question of man's justification, we
wish to say, that so far from fathering the impious and
absurd doctrines our adversaries allege we maintain,
the Catholic Church rejects, condemns and anathema-
tizes them.

It is, then, false, and notoriously false, that Catholics
believe, or in any age did believe, that they could justify
themselves by their own proper merits ; or that they
can do the least good in the order of salvation without
the grace of God merited for them by Jesus Christ;
or that we can deserve this grace by anything we have
the natural power of doing; or that leave to commit
sin, or even the pardon of any sin which has been
committed, can be purchased of any person whomso-
ever ; or that the essence of religion and our hopes of
salvation consist in forms and ceremonies or in other
exterior things. What the Catholic Church teaches
and ever has taught her children is to trust for mercy,
grace and salvation to the merits of Jesus Christ.
Nevertheless, she asserts that we have free-will, and
that this being assisted by Divine grace can and must
co-operate to our justification by faith, sorrow for our
sins and other corresponding acts of virtue which
God will not fail to develop in us if we do not throw
obstacles in the way of them. Thus is all honor and
merit ascribed to the Creator, and every defect and
sin attributed to the creature.

The false views which have been circulated concern-
ing man's justification, and which have for the last
four hundred years done service against truth, orig-

Luther and Justification 101

inated in the erratic brain of Martin Luther, whose
career evidenced the cold fact that he was incapable
either of hard reasoning or clear thinking. We do not
wish by this remark to insinuate that the "Reformer"
was not endowed with talent of a high order, but, as
every student of his history knows, his thought on
serious topics most frequently was strikingly confused.
He was not an exact thinker, and being unable to
analyze an idea into its constituents, as is necessary for
one who will apprehend it correctly, he failed to grasp
questions which by the general mass of the people were
thoroughly and correctly understood. How he missed
and confounded the consecrated teaching on man's
justification is a case in point. He allowed himself to
cultivate an unnecessary antipathy to so-called "holi-
ness by works" and this attitude, combined with his ten-
dency to look at the worst side of things and his knowl-
edge of some real abuses then prevalent in the practice
of works, doubtless contributed to develop his dislike
for good works in general and led him by degrees to
strike at the very roots of the Catholic system of sacra-
ments and grace, of penance and satisfaction, in fact,
all the instruments or means instituted by God both
for conferring and increasing His saving relationship
with man. The extraordinary exaggerations of which
he was guilty in this regard must be imputed, not to
the Church's teaching, but to the peculiar notions he
formed of it in the confusion of his own thoughts — as
we shall see later on.

The Catholic Church has always insisted upon the
necessity of being "perfect eve.i as Our Heavenly Father
is perfect/' by such an entire subjugation of our passions
and a conformity of our will with that of God, that
"our conversation,'' according to St. Paul, "may he in
heaven" while we are yet living here on earth. This
fundamental truth Luther knew well. Early in his
career he ambitioned, as was right, to exemplify the
teaching of the Church in his life. He desired to be
perfect, to reach justification and to become a great
saint. For a time he adopted the approved and neces-

102 The Facts About Luther

sary means whereby his heart's desire for perfection
might be reaHzed. In an evil moment, however, he un-
fortunately allowed himself to forget the indispensable
necessity of humility which is the groundwork of all
the virtues, and by which, says St. Bernard, "from a
thorough knowledge of ourselves we become little in
our own cstimatfon/' Although this lesson was
strongly enforced by Christ and His disciples, yet he
seemed to entirely overlook it, and gradually he became
a prey to spiritual pride, the prolific source of all evil.
Dominated by this dangerous spirit, he grew careless
in the use of the ordinary sane and prudent means sanc-
tioned by all the masters of the spiritual life to ac-
quire true peace of heart and perfect union with God. To
the exclusion of all and every counsel of the experi-
enced in the direction of souls, he, in a spirit of un-
bounded self-sufficiency, imagined he could acquire
perfection by his own peculiar methods and exertions.
As a result oi his mistaken determination to reject every
wise rule laid down for the acquirement of perfection,
he went from one extreme to another until he ex-
hausted himself vainly in fasts, prayers and mortifica-
tions. Moderation and common sense in his case
seemed to have been unknown qualities. When at
length the thought dawned on him that he had not been
able in spite of all his singular, excessive, imprudent
practices of piety to hide from himself the sinfulness
of his nature and the continual violence of his passions,
and that he had still to struggle with temptation, he was
plunged more and more into sadness, desolation, and
terror of God's justice. At this time he seemed to
forget that if God's justice avenged sin, it also re-
warded true virtue. He should have known that the
Catholic Church, of which he was a member, never
expected any of her subjects to propitiate God with their
own works exclusively. She always taught her chil-
dren that over and above the performance of legitimate
and approved works of piety, they were directed to put
their trust for the mastery of the flesh in the infinite
merits of the Redeemer and discharge their duties in

Luther and Justification 108

full reliance on Divine grace which is ever freely
bestowed on all who earnestly strive to do good and
avoid evil. Confidence in God and diffidence in self
enable the humble, no matter what form passion may
assume, ever to say with St. Paul, ''I can do all things
in Him who strengtheneth me." Had Luther remem-
bered this teaching of the Church ana been obedient to
the directions of his spiritual guides, he would not have
been carried away by his own whims and fancies to the
loss of his peace of mind and to distress and anguish
of soul.

In this state of inward depression, which often pros-
trated him with terror, he had the pity and kindly
consideration of his friends. To console and afford
him relief some of them recommended him to direct
his attention in future more than he had in the past to
greater confidence and reliance on God's mercy which
is infinite and ever ready to relieve sinners through
the merits acquired by the death of Christ. The sug-
gestion, which was not novel or unknown to him, in-
spired him for a time with new hope. It let a beam of
sunlight into the darkness of his terror. This, how-
ever, was soon dispelled, for a reaction set in when
he began to ponder over and put his own sense on the
words of St. Paul; "The just man lives by faith." By
a process of reasoning peculiar to himself he construed
the word "faith" to mean an assurance of personal
salvation and "justification" to mean, not an infusion
of justice into the heart of the person justified, but a
mere external imputation of it. Having managed to
connect in his own mind, and afterwards in the minds
of others, the word ''faith" with this unnatural mean-
ing, he could appeal to all the passages in St. Paul's
Epistles which assert that justification is by faith and
claim them as so many proofs of his newly discovered
doctrine. He thinks now that self-pacification is se-
cured and that henceforward he can dispense with all
and every other virtue enjoined in Scripture and work
out his salvation through "faith alone without works."
How he came to hold this unwarranted position, he

104 The Facts About Luther

tells in the following words: "In such thoughts," re-
ferring to his ill-will and anger against God, "I passed
day and night till by God's grace, I remarked how the
words hung together: to wit, 'The justice of God is
revealed in the Gospel,' as it is written. The just man
lives by his faith.' Thence have I learned to know
this same justice of God, in which the just man, through
God's grace and gift, lives by faith alone ... I forth-
with felt I was entirely born anew and that I found
a wide and unbarred door by which to enter Paradise."
In this declaration of false security, we have the
beginning of Luther's new gospel, which, needless to
say, is directly and openly opposed to the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. As a theologian, he should have reahzed
that his notion of the absolute assurance of salvation
imparted by Faith was as false as it was unsound, and
as a professor of Scripture, he should have known that
faith alone is barren and lifeless apart from the meri-
torious works which are necessarily connected with and
founded on it. To hold and declare that men are
justified by faith to the entire exclusion of other Divine
virtues is nothing less than a perversion of the Bible,
a falsification of the Word of God, and an injury to
souls called to work out their salvation along the lines
plainly designated by Jesus Christ. But Luther's self-
esteem and self-conceit blinded him to the truth he
once held in honor, and, instead of repelling and mas-
tering his singular conception of salvation, as he was in
duty bound to do, he held to it with unbending tenacity,
developing it more and more until he finally declares
in Cap. 2, ad. Gal. that 'Taith alone is necessary for
justification : all other things are completely optional
being no longer either commanded or forbidden." It
is this doctrine which he afterwards called the Articu-
lus stantis vel cadentis Ecclesiae; and if we cannot quite
accept this description of it, at least we can recognize
that it is the corner-stone of the Lutheran and Calvin-
istic systems.

In Luther's new program of salvation the living,
vital, efficacious faith that manifests itself in good

Luther and Justification 105

works, and, without which, it is impossible to please
God, must no longer prevail in the minds of men. All
the old teachings, practises and observances of piety, so
useful and helpful for man's justification and his de-
liverance from Divine vengeance, must now be forgot-
ten and abandoned. The priesthood, sacraments, in-
dulgences, intercessory prayer, fasts, pilgrimages, all
spiritual works must be displaced to make way for his
miserable, degrading, and colorless invention of faith
without works. In his special system he wanted none
of the old means for gaining eternal life. They were
considered antiquated, unavailing and worthless. In
his estimation it was not possible for man to perform
any works which were really good and acceptable to
God. Man was so depraved in consequence of the fall
of Adam and Eve that he became totally corrupt, both
in his intellect and his will, and was consequently in-
capable till regenerated of thinking, willing or doing
any good thing. All his actions, therefore, even those
which were most strictly accordant with the precepts
of the natural and Divine law, were "evil and only evil
and that continually." "Corruption hung over man for-
ever and tainted everything he did. All the works of
man before justification were damnable sins ; and all
the works of man after justification were so sinful in
the sight of God that, if He were to judge them strictly,
every one would be damned." In commenting on one
of the Psalms, he makes this horrible statement : "Con-
ceived in sorrow and corruption, the child sins even in
his mother's womb, when, as yet, a mere fetus, an
impure mass of matter, before it becomes a human
creature, it commits iniquity and incurs damnation. As
he grows the innate element of corruption develops.
Man has said to sin, 'Thou art my father,' and every
act he performs is an ofifense against God ; and to the
worms, 'You are my brothers,' and he crawls like
them in mire and corruption. He is a bad tree and
cannot produce good fruit ; a dung-hill and can only
exhale foul odors. He is so thoroughly corrupted that
it is absolutely impossible for him to produce good

106 The Facts About Luther

actions. Sin is his nature ; he cannot help committing
it. Man may do his best to be good, still his every
action is unavoidably bad; he commits a sin as often
as he draws his breath." (Consult Wittenb. III. 518.)
These were favorite sayings of Luther, and thus, if we
are to believe him, every action of an unregenerate
person, however just, generous or noble, is utterly
perverse and corrupt. On the other hand, he main-
tained, "no action that was bad would bring the regener-
ate man under condemnation, because he was justified
by faith ; nor were his good actions, in even the slight-
est degree, meritorious, because they were done entirely
through the grace given him by the Holy Ghost." He
further states that "the nature of man is so corrupted
that it can never be regenerated and sin will remain
in the soul, even of the just, forever. God's all powerful
grace does not cleanse from sin. The Almighty does
not regard the sins of men. He covers them over with
the merits of Christ and does not impute them to the
sinner whose faith in the sufferings of the Redeemer
is made manifest." This is the effect of faith, which,
he says, "tends to prevent ©ur filth from stinking before
God." (Walch XHL 1480.)

Over and over again Luther asserted that man could
not be just, but, in his desire of novelty, he thought
there must be some way never known before whereby
man could be made just, and so after a display of
loose thinking, his wonderful ingenuity for mischief
invented the theory of justification by the imputation
of the righteousness of Christ and not as heretofore by
the communication of His justice. "Christ," he says,
"has suffered for our sins and has fulfilled the law
for us. We have only to believe in Him and by be-
lieving in Him, take hold, as it were, of His merits and
put them on like a cloak. If we do that, although im-
perfect and unholy, we shall be saved and considered
just, not for anything that God made us, not for re-
generation, or transformation, or sanctification but for
the righteousness of Christ, who in Himself was in-
finitely holy. All that man has to do is to remain pasr

Luther and Justification 107

sive; he must not attempt to do anything himself for
his salvation. This would be presumption." He must
remain with regard to all things, which pertain to the
salvation of the soul, as he states in his comment on
Genesis xix, 26, "like the statue of salt into which the
wife of Lot was changed ; to the trunk of a tree or a
stone, like a statue, lifeless and having no use of either
eyes, mouth or other senses or of a heart." "To be a
Christian means to have the Evangelium and to believe
in Christ. This faith brings forgiveness of sins and
Divine grace ; it comes solely through the Holy Ghost,
who works it through the word without any co-opera-
tion on our part. . . . Man remains passive and is
acted upon by the Holy Ghost just as clay is shaped by
the potter." (Tischr. H. C. 15. § i.)

This view of justification was forthwith made
the fundamental dogma of the new religion Luther
formulated for the world's acceptance. From the time
this false doctrine was first announced, his followers
in heresy have been taught to beheve that men are
saved by faith alone and that good works are alto-
gether unnecessary. "The Gospel," Luther falsely
declares, "teaches nothing of the merits of works ; he
that says the Gospel requires works for salvation, I
say, flat and plain, is a liar." (Table Talk, p. 137,
Hazlitt.) If men beheve in Christ, they are told, and
accept Him as their personal Saviour, His justice will
be imputed to them and they will go straight to Heaven.
It does not matter what evil they have done during their
Hves ; it does not matter whether or not they repent
of their sins ; it does not matter whether or not, at
the moment of death, they have compunction, contrition
or attrition, or, are in a state of grace, if they have
faith they will be saved.

Luther was the first in Christendom to proclaim to
the world that man was "justified by faith alone." The
doctrine was novel and admirably suited to lull and
tranquiHze the misgivings of conscience. Although it
opened the way to carelessness of behavior, as events
proved, yet he felt sure of the correctness of his teach-

108 The Facts About Luther

ing and wanted no discussion thereon. Any one who
would dare contradict him on the point and declare
the Gospel required works for salvation was to be
branded as a "liar." This appellation is not a pleasant
one, but, as a matter of fact, its author deserved it
better than he knew, for his singular teaching was as
false as it was pernicious, and being without warrant
in the divine plan of salvation, it was utterly powerless
to lead souls to everlasting Hfe.

If this teaching of Luther's were true, it is apparent
that Christ, instead of declaring that the first and great
commandment was love, should have said that it was
faith. But the Master did not believe that we were
saved by faith alone, because when the rich young man
went to Him and asked what he must do to gain Heaven
our Lord answered: *'If thou wilt enter into life, keep
the Commandments." He did not say, "Believe in
me. Accept me for your personal Saviour. Have faith
in me." No, but He did say: "If thou wilt enter into
life, keep the Commandments." It is evident from this
solemn declaration of Christ that He required in His
followers the faith that manifests itself in such volun-
tary works and actions as are pleasing to Him and are
performed out of Love for Him. That living faith,
which the Master enjoins, is inseparable from charity
or the love of God, and charity is not real unless it
induces us to keep the Commandments and conform
our lives not to some special injunction or virtue, but
to all the requirements and truths of Divine revelation.
This is the teaching which Christ constantly insisted
upon, and this, and no other, was and is still the teach-
ing which He communicated to His Church for the
enlightenment and sanctification of the world until the
end of time.

When Luther advanced his fanciful and mischiev-
ous conception of justification the Church, true to her
mission of safeguarding the truths of her Divine
Founder, had no difficulty in showing that fiduciary
faith — a confidence or hope founded only on the merits
of Jesus Christ — was an absolutely new invention and

Luther and j ustification 109

was not only worthless, but powerless to justify men.
In her Council of Trent ( 1545-1563) she condemned, as
was her right, the new-fangled teaching of Luther and
warned her subjects against its entanglements and dan-
gers. Then she proclaimed anew for the enlightenment
of all the heavenly teaching committed to her keeping
from the beginning and insisted that whilst faith is
necessary to dispose the sinner to receive grace, it
alone is not sufficient for justification. A living faith
that embraces righteousness is what is required, and
this manifests itself in acts of hope, of love, of sorrow
and a purpose of amendment of Hfe. It is only then
that God finding the sinner disposed to believe all re-
vealed truths, observe all the Commandments and re-
ceive the Sacraments He instituted, gives him gratui-
tously His grace or intrinsic justice which remits to
him his sins and sanctifies him.

Faith alone has not the power of saving man for
two reasons: first, that infants are capable of justifi-
cation, which we suppose no one will deny, but are not
capable of an act of faith; second, that faith is a tem-
porary virtue ceasing in the beatified state, whereas
the principle of justification is permanent and eternal.

In the process of justification, the first and foremost
important place is taken by faith. More, however, is
required for its development, completion and perfec-
tion. It should be remembered that when God created
man. He placed him in a state of probation. He
constituted him a rational being and imposed certain
precepts which he was free to keep or violate as he
may choose unto eternal happiness or eternal misery.
Although God required the particular exercise of love
which consists in a voluntary obedience to His precepts,
yet He cannot dispense with love itself, which is the
great and necessary requisite to a state of perfect jus-
tification. The attributes of God require Him to carry
out the terms of probation to which He has subjected
man. The acts which proceed from the principle
of love, in order to bring the soul to God as its ultimate
term, must, therefore, cover not a part, but the whole

110 The Facts About Luther

ground of the Divine law and include not one but all
the Commandments.

Love then is the dominating principle in the union
of the soul with God and the fashioning of it for an
eternity of reward.

Faith alone, whether fiduciary or dogmatic, cannot
then justify man. Since our Divine adoption and
friendship with God is based on charity or perfect love
of God, dead faith, faith devoid of charity, cannot
possess any justifying power. Only such faith as is
active in charity and good works can justify man and
this even before the actual reception of Baptism or
Penance, although not without the desire of the sacra-
ment. The essence of active justification comprises
not only forgiveness of sins, but also ''Sanctification
and renovation of the interior man by means of the
voluntary acceptation of sanctifying grace and other
supernatural gifts."

Thus, we are justified by God's justice, not that jus-
tice whereby He Himself is just, but that justice
whereby He makes us just, in so far as He bestows
upon us the gift of His grace which renovates the
soul interiorly and adheres to it as the soul's own holi-
ness.

''Love," as Mohler says, "must already vivify faith
before the Catholic Church will say that through it man
is truly pleasing to God. Faith in love and love in
faith justify; they form here an indispensable unity.
This justifying faith is not merely negative, but posi-
tive with all ; not merely a confidence, that for Christ's
sake forgiveness of sins will be obtained, but a sancti-
fied feeling, in itself agreeable to God. Charity is un-
doubtedly, according to Catholic doctrine, a fruit of
faith. But Faith justifies only when it has already
brought forth this fruit."

This teaching of the Church on Justification was
most distasteful to Luther and, as might be expected
from a man of his rebellious nature, he opposed it with
all the force at his command. In the Altenburg edition
of his works we have a sample of his characteristic

Luther and Justification 111

raving on the point at issue. 'The Papists," he says,
''contend that faith which is informed by charity, justi-
fies. On this point we must contend and oppose with
all our strength ; here we must yield not a nail's breadth
to any ; neither to the angels of Heaven, nor to the gates
of Hell, nor to St. Paul, nor to an hundred Emperors,
nor to a thousand Popes, nor to the whole world ; and
'this be my watchword and sign' : 'tessera et sym-
boliim/ " The consummate boldness of this call to incite
rebellion against the express teaching of God regarding
the salvation of man is most astonishing and scan-
dalous.

In all the bitterness of his antagonism and opposition,
he, after all, was something of a reasoner when he had
an object to attain and when he wanted to make things
square with his strange and novel views. He knew
as well as any man of his day that the Church, to
which he belonged from his youth to his excommuni-
cation, demanded from time immemorial faith and
good works as essential requisites in the lives of all who
were anxious to attain salvation. This time-honored
doctrine, however, stood in the way and was in opposi-
tion to his heretofore unheard of system of salvation,
and, as it could not be made to agree with his fanciful
and eccentric speculations, he labored in season and
out of season to dethrone the Church's teaching in the
minds and in the hearts of the faithful. In the execu-
tion of his mischievous work, he began to laugh and
jeer at the idea of good works as necessary for justifi-
cation. He denounced in unmeasured terms the works
of supererogation or the counsels of perfection, and
the vows by which priests, monks, and nuns conse-
crated themselves to the service of God. In his esti-
mation, it was an idle thing, fondly invented, that man
or woman should separate himself or herself from
the world and be consecrated unreservedly to the
service of the living God. And all following our Lord
in the way of self-abnegation, in the way of self-denial,
in the way of the crucifixion of self and of the flesh
with all its unholy desires, he completely and totally

112 The Facts About Luther

denied, and not only denied but even derided. The
needlessness of all these and other consecrated
means of attaining perfection hitherto in use, pro-
claimed by Luther, proved a new charter of lib-
erty from bondage of every kind for himself,
and in the end for multitudes of others. The ex-
perience of later years record the sad fact that the
so-called message of emancipation left men, not better,
but worse than it found them. The soothing but disas-
trous doctrine of faith without works could only lead
to carelessness of life and open up the way to every
species of unbridled lewdness and immorality. It did
not bring; as was fondly contemplated, the peace and
confidence and spiritual freedom expected. The very
contrary results were everywhere noticeable, for all,
from Luther down to the last of his misguided fol-
lowers who denied the necessity of supernatural helps
and earnest striving in the ways of perfection, were
universally notable for such indecencies and horrible
violations of God's law as shock and scandalize every
impartial reader of the history of the Reformation
period.

The denial of the necessity of good works for justifi-
cation was, however, only a part of Luther's plan for
the ruin and deception of the unwary. In order to
give color to his "new experience of salvation," as
Leimbech calls it, he maintained in his Commentary on
the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians that "there is
an irreconcilable opposition existing between the Law
and the Gospel." "The Law and the Gospel," he says,
"are two contrary things which cannot be in harmony
with each other," and, "no man on earth can properly
distinguish between the Law and the Gospel." To
lend weight to this bold and untenable claim, nothing
daunted, he went so far as to say that "even the man
Jesus Christ, when in the Garden of Gethsemane, suf-
fered from such ignorance." (Tischr. I. C. 12. § 19.)
The imputation implied in this utterance is shocking,
but we must pass it over for the moment. We feel,
however, that Luther's ignorance was more feigned

Luther AND Justification 113

than real because his earher theological studies dealt
exhaustively with the question of the Law and the
Gospel, their nature, order and position in the Divine
scheme of salvation. If he declared, as he did later,
that he could not sufficiently realize the question, he
should not, however, have brazenly stated that "no
man on earth understood it," for he confessed that his
own pupils boasted they comprehended the doctrine
thoroughly and had it "at their fingers' ends." He
knew, too, that besides his own pupils there were thou-
sands and thousands of the faithful in his day who
realized that there was no contradiction between the
Law and the Gospel and that the New or Evangelical
Law was no other than the old moral law renewed,
approved and perfected by Jesus Christ according to
His own declaration : ''Do not think that I am come to
destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to de-
stroy, but to fulfill."

Luther, however, cared little about misrepresenting
the belief of the neighbor when he wanted to gain a
hearing for his own false conceptions. His viewpoint
was in the circumstances paramount to all else and to
advance it, he used all his energies regardless of con-
sequences. In his scheme for the destruction of every-
thing hitherto held as holy and sacred, it hardly suited
him to acknowledge the harmony which existed be-
tween the Law and the Gospel, for he was gradually
preparing the way for the violation, destruction and
abandonment of the Decalogue. Having fallen away
from his original fervor and having become a breaker
and not an observer of the Commandments, he wanted
to strike a blow at the source of all morality, and re-
move, if possible, the very foundation of all moral
obligation. Despite all the teaching of Christ to the
effect that the Law was for all men, for all time, and
for all circumstances, he imagined that a declaration of
freedom from the bondage thereof would make his
position more tenable and his teaching more savory
and acceptable to the crowd he desired to win to his
cause.

114 The Facts About Luther

Luther, of course, wanted the Law announced. He
preached and taught it ; he inserted it in his catechism
and he exhorted his followers to recite it daily. Never-
theless, he, at the same time, warned against allowing
the Law to have any influence on the conscience, for
then it would become, as he said, "a sink of heresies
and blasphemies." (Wittenb. V. 2^2 b.) He consid-
ered the advocacy of the Law merely useful "to show
to man that he is a sinner, to terrify him in that way
and make him throw himself upon Christ." (De
Wette, HI, 307.) To crush the "horrible monster and
stiffnecked brute" of pride in man who is ever in-
clined to think much of himself and of his works,
"God wants," he says, "a great and strong hammer,
that is, the Law, for it reveals to man his absolute
inability to keep it. The laws have been given only,
that man should see in them the impossibility of doing
good and that he should learn to despair of himself.
... As soon as man begins to learn and to feel, from
the laws of God his own incapacity ... he becomes
thoroughly humbled and annihilated in his own eyes."
(Walch, XIX, 1212.)

Although Luther advocated the Law and wished
it known by all, he, at the same time, declared that
"the moral duties it enjoined were impossible of fulfill-
ment and incited not love, but hatred of God." "Lex
summum odium Dei affert." In this favorite declara-
tion he gives a new proof of the contradictory charac-
ter of his mind and advances a teaching which is di-
rectly opposed to that of faith and experience. To
claim that the fulfillment of the Law is impossible is as
imnious as it is blasphemous, inasmuch as it imputes
to God the injustice of commanding us to do something
above our strength. How could God, who is infinitely
wise and good, command His creatures to do anything
impossible to them? If the accomplishment of the
Law seems to be above the powers of nature, do we
not know, and have we not been assured that God is
careful to offer all His Divine helps to enable the will
of man not only to fulfill all the duties imposed by the

Luther AND Justification 115

Law, but also to make him experience pleasure and
happiness in their observance? Does not the Holy
Ghost declare by the mouth of the Psalmist, "Blessed
is the man that feareth the Lord. He shall delight
exceedingly in His Commandments"? The example of
the Saints of all ages, conditions and climes furnish
unanswerable proof of this truth. God's grace is
ever ready to help men of good will. He will no
more fail us than He failed the saints. The same faith,
the same hope, the same love, the same sacraments, the
same Gospel they had will assuredly help us, as they
helped them, to subdue passion and attain to holiness
of behavior. With all the Divine helps God has
placed at man's disposal, is it not easier to fulfill the
Law than to break it? Besides, is it not more honor-
able to obey God than passion? Is it not sweeter to
have the soul filled with peace by repressing passion
than gnawed with remorse through the gratification of
irregular inclinations ?

The impiety and blasphemy of Luther is all the more
remarkable when after stating the impossibility of ful-
filling the Law, he unblushingly declares that "the Law
incites not love but hatred of God." Every reader of
the Scripture knows how false and unfounded this
statement is. The Law of God is the law of love. It
can never inspire hatred in the mind or heart of men
of good will towards its Framer. Christ's words prove
this to a certainty. He says: "If any one love Me, he
will keep My word and My Father will love him, and
we will come to him and will make our abode with
him." St. Paul expresses the same teaching when he
says that the "fulfilling of the law is love." St. John
also confirms this truth in the memorable words:
"We have known and have believed the charity which
God hath to us. God is charity, and he that abideth in
charity, abideth in God and God in him." Thus faith
and experience unite in proclaiming that not only is
the observance of the Commandments possible, but
their fulfillment incites not hatred but love of God.

Luther at one time knew all this, but later on his

116 The Facts About Luther

anxiety to place opposition between the Law and the
Gospel, and to deiine the place the Law occupies in the
religion of Christ and the purpose for which it exists,
warped his judgment and blinded his intellect regarding
the true state of the question. All his efforts to explain
the necessity of the Decalogue, inasinuch as he admits
it at all, are not too clear, and the line he draws be-
tween the Law and the Gospel is not only unsatisfac-
tory, but most disappointing. Here are his own words.
"The Law," he says, "points out what man has to do,
v/hereas the Gospel unfolds the gifts God is willing
to confer on man. The former we cannot observe,
the latter we receive and apprehend by faith." (Tischr.
L C. 12 § 7.) "The Gospel," he would have us believe,
"does not announce what we must do or omit . . .
but bids us open our hands to receive gifts, and says,
Behold, dear man, this is what God has done for you :
for your sake He made His Son assume human nature.
This believe and accept, and you shall be saved. The
Gospel only shows us the gifts of God, not what we
have to give to God or to do for Him as is the wont
of the Law." (Walch, HI, 4.)

Luther was right in saying that the Gospel unfolds
the gifts of God to mankind, but he erred grievously
in declaring that it did not announce "what we must do
or omit." Every reader of the Gospel knows that
Christ, who was sent by His Father to instruct and
guide us to perfection, not only promulgated the law
anew, but ever and always insisted on its observance.
When the young man asked Christ the question, "What
shall I do to be saved?" He clearly answered: "If thou
wilt enter into life keep the Commandments." Now,
the Decalogue, which is the application of the great
precept of the love of God and one's neighbor, enjoins
two kinds of precepts : some positive, commanding cer-
tain thinsfs to be done ; others negative, forbidding
certain things to be done; all having for their end to
teach us the acts bv which we should exercise our char-
ity and protect this virtue from injury and even de-
struction. The law of God is the law oi charity, and

Luther and Justification 117

chanty is active in doing good and avoiding evil. It
manifests itself not merely by words, but by works ;
the works prescribed in the Commandments. To pro-
duce the works of charity is a duty not to be shirked.
It binds at all times and under all circumstances if we
would secure happiness in this world and in the next.
Moreover, the observance of the Commandments shows
God that He is always Our Lord and Master having
the power and the right to rule over and command His
servants and children. It is from this point of view
that we must contemplate the Decalogue, if we would
understand the profound meaning of the Saviour's
numerous words regarding the sweetness of the Divine
law. To select one out of many we find Him saying :
"Take up My yoke upon you and learn of Me, because
I am meek and humble of heart; and you shall find
rest to your souls. For My yoke is sweet and My bur-
den light," which is the same as to say, "My yoke is
love," the only end of all my precepts is to preserve
love ; preserve it ''and you shall find rest to your souls/'
It is in Charity, then, that all the Christian religion
consists. It is that which distinguishes the true Chris-
tian ; it is that which makes him really a child of God,
a member of the mystical body of Christ, the living
temple of the Holy Ghost, an heir and citizen of the
Kingdom of Heaven. Without charity all is useless
and profits nothing to salvation. Neither faith nor
miracles, nor the most exalted gifts, nor the most gen-
erous alms, nor even martyrdom in the midst of flames,
can profit us anything toward salvation without charity
or the love of God. "If I have not charity," St. Paul
says, "I am nothing and it profiteth one nothing."

Luther endeavored with all his power to draw a
distinction between Christ and His promulgation of the
law. He wanted to have it appear that the Saviour of
men should be recognized for His quality of mercy
and not for His justice. The thought of Christ as a
judge angered by sin was abhorrent to him. All his
special pleading in this direction could not, however,
still the behests of conscience which ever and always

118 The Facts About Luther

bears witness to the law and testifies to its binding
force. The precepts of the Decalogue are so fixedly
impressed on the heart of man that it is impossible
to violate these without feehng that the Almighty, who
is set at defiance by the sinner, will surely avenge all
and every transgression if not atoned for. Man, Luther
admitted, bears within his heart this voice, which
reproaches him with a badly spent life and which
threatens him with God's judgment; but, he calls "this
voice the voice of the devil," ''who tries to cheat man,"
and "who comes under the appearance of Christ and
transforms himself into an angel of light," "to frighten
us with the Law." (Wittenb. V. 321, 321 B. Cfr. 382.)
This fanciful notion, confounding the voice of con-
science with the voice of man's enemy, brought neither
peace nor consolation to his hearers. The better in-
formed realized, in spite of all his strange advice, that
the voice of conscience still asserted itself and bore
indubitable witness to sin and the fear of its punish-
ment. Conscience can never be dethroned and man
cannot help realizing the presence of sin and being
terrified at the thought of hell and eternal death.
Luther knew all this, but he persisted in his dogged op-
position until we find him in the agony of despair
declaring with the uttermost boldness that "Man must
persuade himself that he has nothing to do with the
law and that no'sins can condemn him ; nay, let him, so
to say, boast of his sinfulness and thus take the weapon
out of the devil's hand. When the devil rushes at you
and tries to drown you in the flood and the deluge of
your sins . . . say to him, 'Why do you wish to make
a saint of me, why do you expect to find justice in me,
who has nothing but sins and most grievous ones ?' "
(Wittenb. V. 281 B.) "In fact, what would be the use
of Christ, if the law and our transgressions of the law
could still annoy and terrify us?" Therefore, he says,
"when the conscience is terror-stricken on account of
the law and struggles with the thought of God's judg-
ment, do not consult reason or the law . . . act exactly
as if you had never heard of the law of God." (Wit-

Luther AND Justification liu

tenb. V. 303 B.) "Answer: There is a time to live
and a time to die ; there is a time to hear the law and
a time to despise the law . . . Let the law be off
and let the Gospel reign." (Wittenb. V. 304 B.) *'The
body with its members," he says, "has to be subject
to the law, it has to carry its burden like a donkey, but
leave the donkey with its burden in the valley when
you ascend the mountain. For the conscience has noth-
ing to do with law, works, earthly justice. We want
indeed 'the light of the Evangelium' to understand
this, and in this light the meaning is : 'Keep the law, by
all means ; but if you do not, you need not be troubled
in your conscience, for the transgression of the law
cannot possibly condemn you.' " (Wittemb. V. 304.)

Some of Luther's admirers imagine that under the
Church's teaching the people did not understand the
Ten Commandments and they claim forthwith that
their hero came and brought back the true conscious-
ness of them and that whatever he said about them is
to be understood as an antithesis between grace and
law in the life of the Christian. If this be so, then it be-
hooves his admirers to tell us in what possible connec-
tion is it permissible for a Christian gentleman to say, "if
we allow them (the Ten Commandments) any influence
in our conscience, they become the cloak of all evil,
heresies, and blasphemies?" Is this the "antithesis
between grace and law?" Does not Luther make it
plain enough when he says, "The Catholic theologians
are asses who do not know what they maintain, when
they say that Christ has only abrogated the ceremonial
law of the Old Testament, and not also the Ten Com-
mandments?" (Epistle to the Galatians.) Is the
abrogation of the Ten Commandments an "antithesis?"
"That shall serve you as a true rule that wherever the
Scriptures orders and commands to do good works,
you must so understand it that the Scriptures forbid
good works." (Wittenb. ed. 2, 171. 6.) "If you
should not sin against the Gospel, then be on your
guard against good works ; avoid them as one avoids
a pest." (Jena. ed. i. 318 b.) In what connection is

120 The Facts About Luther

it compatible with a Christian character to counsel
against good works as against a '"pest" and make it an
"antithesis to grace?" Or, under what circumstances
is it allowable for a "man of God" and a "Reformer"
to say of Moses, God's chosen servant, that he should
be looked upon "with suspicion as the worst heretic,
as a damned and excommunicated person; yea, worse
than tne Pope and the Devil?" (Jena. 4, 98. 6.) "A
pure heart enlightened by God must not dirty, soil itself
with the law. Thus let the Christian understand that
it matters not whether he keeps it or not ; yea, he may
do what is forbidden and leave undone what is com-
manded, for neither is a sin." (W. XI. 447.) Does
this indicate a very reverential spirit toward the law
of God and was this intended to mean that the law was
to be a guide for the hfe of regenerates? Is it thus
that "Luther came and brought back the true conscious-
ness of them (the Ten Commandments) to the peo-
ple?" If this be so, then the "moral lite and progress,"
his friends claim for his doctrine, has its root in the
worst days of paganism, and not in the teachings of
Jesus Christ and of His Church.

As might be expected from one who strove to mini-
mize the importance and intiuence of the Law in the
lives of men, Luther had scant respect for him whom
God selected to proclaim His will to the peoples and
the nations from Sion's Mount. This mouth-piece of
God became the special subject of his untiring and
ceaseless abuse and vituperation. He not only acknowl-
edges his opposition to Moses, but he urges it with all
the vehemence he is master of. He went so far in his
antagonism that he proclaimed the Law-giver a most
dangerous man and the embodiment of everything that
can torment the soul. His hatred of the Prophet was
so deep-rooted that on one occasion he cried out : "To
the gallows with Moses." He disliked him because he
thought that he insisted too strongly on the Law and
its observance. In order to minimize his mission and
destroy his influence he boldly and untruthfully as-
serted that Moses "was sent to the Jewish people only

Luther and Justification 121

and had nothing whatever to do with Gentiles and
Christians." His advice to all who bothered themselves
with the Law-giver was to "chase that stammering and
stuttering Moses," as he called him, "with his law to
the Jews and not allow his terrible threats to intimidate
them." "Moses must ever be looked upon," he says,
"with suspicion, even as upon a heretic, excommuni-
cated, damned, worse than the Pope and the Devil."
(Comment, in Gal.) The scurrilous language applied
to God's messenger reaches its depths of infamy when
he says further: "I will not have Moses with his law,
for he is the enemy of the Lord Christ ... we must
put away thoughts and disputes about the law, when-
ever the conscience becomes terrified and feels God's
anger against sin. Instead of that it will be better to
sing, to eat, to drink, to sleep, to be merry in spite of
the devil." (Tischr. L. C. 12. §. 17.) "No greater
insult can be offered to Christ than to suppose that
He has come to give commandments, to make a sort
of Moses of him." (Tischr. S. 66). "Only the mad
and blind Papists do such a thing." (Wittenb. V.
292 B.) "Christ's work consists in this: to fulfill the
law for us, not to give laws to us and to redeem us."
(Ibid.) "The devil makes of Christ a mere Moses."
(Walch, VIII. 58.)

Luther evidently was not any more an admirer of
Moses than he was, at times, of the Decalogue. His
personal hatred for the great advocate of the law was
roused because of his zeal in enforcing the obligation
of keeping the Commandments. The ridicule he heaped
on Moses passed to the masses and not a criminal from
that time on that has not wished that the Law-giver
and the Commandments he proclaimed had never ex-
isted. To displace in men's minds and hearts the wise
and beneficent code of morality God gave to mankind
IS nothing less than criminal. There is not one of our
interests that the Decalogue does not surround with the
most sacred barriers. Upon its observance depend the
glory, tranquillity and prosperity of mankind in this
world and their felicitv in the next. To trifle with

122 The Facts About Luther

Heaven-given law and weaken its importance is a
scandal and can only result in complete disrespect and
disregard for all legitimate authority, a curse which is
unfortunately not unknown in the world of to-day.
In the presence of the general depravity of the hour,
it is high time to proclaim from the house-tops that
the sweet and gentle Gospel of the Saviour of men
still exists in all its pristine beauty and force, that it
tells plainly and clearly what all must do or omit, and
that it is only by following its sublime injunctions that
men can be freed from the error, impiety, libertinism,
hatred, discord and all the other evils which makes Hfe
in the world to-day a long and bitter torment.

Luther, as we learn from the evidence presented,
held very singular views regarding sin and its com-
mission. We do not wish to insinuate that he actually
taught and approved sin, for we know that he did as a
rule instruct men to avoid violations of the law and
repress the concupiscence leading thereto. But we do
hold that his whole theory of justification by faith
alone and his denial of moral freedom, making "God
the author of what is evil in us," necessarily broke
down the usual barriers against sin, and that his moral
recommendations very often in the plainest of language
did actually and openly encourage sin. His consum-
ing thought is to "believe." "No other sin," he says,
"exists in the world save unbelief. All others are mere
trifles. . . . All sins shall be forgiven if we only believe
in Christ." This thought of the all-forgiving nature
of faith so dominated his mind that it excluded the
notion of contrition, penance, good works or effort on
the part of the believer and thus his teaching destroyed
root and branch the whole idea of human culpability
and responsibility for the breaking of the Command-
ments.

Now, let us see the teaching of Luther in its practical
working. He was frequently asked for advice on
moral questions by his friends who were grievously
troubled on account of certain temptations and who
desired to know the best means to be used to overcome

Luther and Justification 12a

the affliction of their souls. One of these was Jerome
Weller, a former pupil of Luther's and one of the table
companions who took notes for the "Table-Talk.'' This
young man was long and grievously tormented with
anxiety of mind and was unable to quiet, by means of
the new Evangel, the scruples of conscience which were
driving him to despair. When he asked for advice in
his sad state of soul Luther sent him the followmg
strange reply : "Poor Jerome Weller, you have temp-
tations ; they must be overcome. When the devil comes
to tempt and harass you with thoughts of the kind you
allude to, have recourse at once to conversation, diink
more freely, be jocose and playful and even indulge
some sin in hatred of the evil spirit and to torment him,
to leave him no room to make us over-zealous aoout
the merest trifles; otherwise we are beaten if we are
too nervously sensitive about guarding against sin. If
the devil says to you, *Will you not stop drinking, an-
swer him : I will drink all the more because you f o/bid
it ; I will drink great draughts in the name and to the
honor of Jesus Christ/ Imitate me. I never driuK so
well, I never eat so much, I never enjoy myself so well
at table as when I am vexing the devil who is prepared
to mock and harass me. Oh, that I could paint sin in
a fair light, so as to mock at the devil and make him
see that I acknowledge no sin and am not conscious
of having committed any ! I tell you, we must put all
the Ten Commandments, with which the devil tempts
and plagues us so greatly, out of sight and out of mind.
If the devil upbraids us with our sins and declares us
to be deserving of death and hell, then we must say :
*I confess that I have merited death and hell,' but what
then ? Are you for that reason to be damned eternally ?
By no means. T know One Who suffered and made
satisfaction for me, viz., Jesus Christ, the Son of
God. Where He is, there also I shall be." (De Wette,
I V. i88.)

Here we have a characteristic sample of Luther's
strange asceticism and astounding liberalism. How
different all this is from what Christ and His Church

124 The Facts About Luther

propound for the expiation of sin committed and the
prevention of its recurrence. According to these, we
are under the obligation to resist the irregular ten-
dencies of the heart and to crucify it with its immoder-
ate desires. If Luther had been a real friend of Wel-
ter's and a true master of the spiritual life, why did
he not counsel him to avoid sin and cultivate a more
intimate union with God through prayer, penance, and
the reception of the sacraments ? Surely he must have
known that there is a certain demon, according to the
words of Jesus Christ, which can be conquered only
by fasting and prayer. But the salutary remedies of
the Master did not appeal to this strange man who
thought that faith in Christ alone washes all sin away.
He preferred, as he said, "to leave these fine recipes to
the stupid Papists." Abhorring the thought of penance
and mortification and denying the necessity of good
works, nothing, however, more efficacious might be
expected than the vile and pernicious prescription he
gave to Weller. The true spiritual director was never
known to advise more ''liberal potations," ''to seek com-
pany," and "to indulge in jest and play" in order to foil
the devil. Like the blind leader of the blind, he wanted
something unheard of before, something novel, some-
thing startling to put the devil to flight and that, in his
estimation, was always when troubled with scruples of
conscience to be heedless of sin and indulge even in
more frivolity than Satan suggested. Thus with a bold-
ness that was never equalled, he unblushingly recom-
mended remedies, which to say the least, were most
dangerous to weak and afflicted souls and calculated
to undermine the binding force of the Decalogue in
the eyes and thoughts of men. Only one mentally
unbalanced and spiritually deranged could advance
such a rule of conduct in defiance of all the proprieties
prescribed and sanctioned by law and order.

The unholy counsels which Luther gave to Weller, to
despise sin and to meet temptation by frivolitv, are
explained in grer.ter fulness in the "Table-Talk," a
work which was compiled by his pupils and in which

Luther and Justification 125

his teaching is recorded in most disgusting detail.
"How often," he says, "have I taken with my wife
those Hberties which nature permits merely in ordei
to get rid of Satan's temptations. Yet all to no pur-
pose, for he refused to depart : for Satan, as the author
of death, has depraved our nature to such an extent
that we will not admit any consolation. Hence I advise
every one who is able to drive away these Satanic
thoughts by diverting his mind, to do so, for instance,
by thinking of a pretty girl, of money-making, or of
drink, or, in fine, by means of some other vivid emo-
tion." (Colloq. ed. Bindsell, 2 p. 299.) **Let us fix
our mind on other thoughts" he had also said to Schla-
ginhaufen, "on thoughts of dancing, or of a pretty girl,
that also is good." Such, according to his own confes-
sion, were the means he employed himself and advised
others to use to get rid of the disquieting tinges of con-
science. Had he desired to recall the teaching and
practise of the Catholic Church how vastly different
would have been his advice to the sorely tried in their
moments of temptations when prayer for God's help,
true humility and earnest striving after a change of
heart are alone efficacious.

Luther's fullest contempt for violations of the Deca-
logue are found in the famous letter he addressed from
the Wartburg under date of August ist, 1521, to his
most intimate friend, Melanchthon, to encourage him
with regard to possible sins of the past and prepare
him to meet temptations in the future. The reader
who is anxious to see the letter in its entirety can find
it in Grisar, Volume HI, page ig6. His advice is
couched in the following words : "Be a sinner, and sin
boldly, but believe more boldly still. . . . We must sin
as long as we are what we are ... sin shall not drag
us away from Him (Christ) even should we commit
fornication or murder, thousands and thousands of
times a day" provided the sinner only believed. Thus
he repeats, against the trr^litional view of sin and grace,
his teaching of iustification by faith alone.

In his estimation sin now must be regarded as some-

^

126 The Facts About Luther

thing harmless in view of the satisfying redemption of
Christ by faith. This is the culmination of all his
practical ideas of religion. "Be a sinner," he says,
''sin boldly and fearlessly." The command embodied
in the unauspicious words sets at naught all the laws
of morality and gives wide scope to human freedom
and to disorder. The thought of the degrading recom-
mendation makes the blood run cold in the veins of
decent, law-abiding people. In the face of the infa-
mous suggestion, it is difficult to conceive how men
with any pretentions to reverence for the Decalogue
can be found to designate one, who so unblushingly
urges its violation, as a ''dear man of God." If the
author of such an infamous suggestion, as is involved
in the words, "sin boldly," was not a child of Satan
none ever labored so strenuously in advancing his soul-
destroying principles.

The defenders of Luther do not deny the recom-
mendation he addressed to Melanchthon, To hide its
grossness, however, they, in the blasphetoiy of despair,
have edited and interpreted the recommendation so
as to give it a turn and a meaning altogether unwar-
ranted and tmtenable. Luther said : "Be a sinner and
sin boldly." His supporters, to hoodwink and deceive
their followers, claim that the imperative mood used by
Luther is not here to be read imperatively and accord-
ing to them, "Be a sinner and sin boldly" means "even
supposing thou art a sinner and dost sin boldly." This
interpretation is ingenious, but like all their methods of
defense to escape from the infamy of Luther's teach-
ing, as Anderdon remarks, "the deploying of impera-
tives into subjunctives, suppositions, exaggerations,
reductions ad ahsnrdum, will never make the impera-
tive mood read otherwise than as a clear, distinct in-
junction. Until some more formidable line of defense
be invented, we must take Luther's words to mean, as
they manifestly indicate, a recommendation, an exhor-
tation and an injunction to mutiny, rebellion and dis-
obedience to the Supreme Law-giver who directed all
to observe and not disrespect His Commandments."

Luther and Justification 127

Luther's pronouncement, ''Be a sinner and sin boldly,"
has only one meaning, namely, a command to transgress
the Divine law, insult God and open up the way to the
commission of crime and iniquity. If Luther knew his
Bible as thoroughly as his advocates suppose, how
could he, unless he was devoid of the elementary in-
stinct of common propriety, advise his friend Melanch-
thon to provoke the divine justice by the commission
of sin and expose him thereby to the wilful risk of
eternal chastisement? Had Luther been a true friend
to Melanchthon and a trusted spiritual guide, he would
have counselled him to cease to *'sin," and not "to have
strong sins," for only then faith in Christ brings con-
solation, joy and peace. Had he not been dominated
by his unbounded self-sufficiency, he might have re-
called with profit the Divine warning so often repeated
in Scripture: ''Flee from sins as from the face of a
serpent; for if thou comest near them, they will take
hold of thee. The teeth thereof are the teeth of a
lion, killing the souls of men. All iniquity is like a
two-edged sword ; there is no remedy for the wound
thereof." (Ecclesiasticus XXI, i, 3.) To recall these
or other words of Scripture to Melanchthon would have
been a kindness, but this was not Luther's way once
his mind was made up to minimize, if possible, the
influence of the Commandments in the lives of men.

When we consider his own behavior and the dan-
gerous advice he gave his friends, we are led to
believe that only one devoid of his senses or one mor-
ally weak could condone, palliate and defend sin,
which is always contemptible both from a natural and
a supernatural point of view, and is ever a base act
of cowards who are too indifferent to conform their
lives to the Divine code of morality. Account as we
may for Luther's suggestion to Melanchthon, the fact
remains that he brazenly trifled with the soul-destroy-
ing principle of sin to spread corruption from that day
to this in the body politic. The debasing teaching he
shamefully advanced struck a mighty blow at the
foundation on which all laws repose, and, as might

128 The Facts About Luther

be expected, a deplorable relaxation of principle among
the deluded came along, as a matter of course, to curse
the earth from that day to this. Following the ex-
ample of Luther, many ever since have been loud in
their praise of sin, and at times the more revolting
it is the greater are the encomiums of it.

It cannot be denied that Luther taught that "good
works are useless," that "they are sin," and, in fact,
"impossible." In his "Babylonian Captivity" (Chap,
de Bapt.) he says, "The way to heaven is narrow; if
you wish to pass through it, throw away your good
works." "Those pious souls," he says further, "who
do good to gain the kingdom of heaven, not only will
never succeed, but they must even be reckoned among
the impious ; and it is more important to guard them
against good works than against sin." (Wittenb. VI.
i6o.) Thus, good works, the practise of piety, and
the observance of the Divine commandments, the only
way, according to Jesus Christ, which leads to eternal
life, are in his estimation troublesome superfluities, of
which Christian liberty must rid us. Rather, accord-
ing to this false teacher, they are invincible obstacles
to salvation, if one places the least reliance upon them.
"Faith alone," said he, "is necessary for Justification :
nothing else is commanded or forbidden." "Believe,
and henceforth you are as holy as St. Peter."

To bring these horrible doctrines, which sought to
take from the sacraments their efficacy and saving
grace into disrepute was his avoved object. The
utility and importance of the sacramental system of
the Church once destroyed, it may easily be imagined
what scope would be given to the passions and how the
greatest excesses were likely to be committed. The
influence exerted by the doctrine we have just men-
tioned immediately produced a great and widespread
deterioration of morals, both public and private. Of
this the writings of Luther's age and of that immedi-
ately following furnish incontestable proof. Out of
many unsuspected Lutheran authorities we take one
who was Luther's pupil and a boarder in his house.

Luther and Justification 129

namely, John Mathesins. He complains of the spread
of immorality, infidelity and oppression brought about
through the introduction of the Reformation and states
the cause of it all in these words: '*Many false
brethren, who Hatter the people and ascribe all to the
justification by faith, do not wish to hear anything of
good works, but say openly : only have faith and do
as you please, good or evil, it will not harm you as
long as you are predestinated to be saved." The same
notorious fact concerning- the deterioration of morals
is referred to in the sermons, correspondence, and
other writings of the "Reformers," and those of the
Humanists, who, like Erasmus, at that time sided de-
cidedly neither with the Reformers nor with the
Church. So, too, do Hume, Robertson, Macauley, and
Lecky, even while they, each in his own way, endeavor
to disparage the Catholic religion.

Immediately on the preaching of this doctrine, crimes
increased in number and enormity. In all classes
frivolity and every kind of vice, sin and disgrace were
much greater than formerly. Men quickly learned the
lessons taught them both by the precepts and the exam-
ple of their master. Setting up the rule unfolded to
them for their guidance they scoffed at and defied
authority, secular and spiritual. In the name of ''J^^s-
tification by faith alone," they dispensed themselves
from performing good works and without activity in
the cause of goodness, they gradually fell into serious
breaches of the Divine law. A rigid Pharisaical sever-
ity on certain points was united with utter license as
regards many of the plainest obligations of religion
and morality. The statute books of the several princi-
palities of which Germany was then composed, of
Belgium and the Netherlands, of France and Switzer-
land, and of England, the severe measures resorted
to by the magistrates to repress general lawlessness, of
which they complain in their official reports and declare
themselves unable to check, furnish indisputable evi-
dence directly to the point. But it is needless to mul-
tiply proofs. We call Luther himself as witness and

180 TFtj; Facts About Luther

give his own declaration as to the effects produced
upon morahty and religion by the new gospel of ''faith
without works."

'1 would not be astonished/' he says, "if God should
open the gates and windows of hell, and snow or rain
down devils, or rain down on our heads fire and brim-
stone, or bury us in a fiery abyss as he did Sodom and
Gomorrah. Had Sodom and Gomorrah received the
gifts that have been granted to us, had they seen our
visions and received our instructions, they would yet
be standing. They were a thousand times less culpa-
ble than Germany, for they had not received the Word
of God from their preachers. ... If Germany will
act thus, I am ashamed to be one of her children or
speak her language ; and if I were permitted to impose
silence on my conscience, I would call in the Pope and
assist him and his minions to forge new chains for
us. Formerly, when we were the slaves of Satan,
when we profaned the name of God . . . money could
be procured for endowing churches, for raising semi-
naries, for maintaining superstition. Now that we
know the Divine word, that we have learned to honor
the blood of our Martyr-God, no one wishes to give any-
thing. The children are neglected, and no one teaches
them to serve God."

"Since the downfall of Popery, and the cessations of
excommunications and spiritual penalties, the people
have learned to despise the word of God. They care
no longer for the churches ; they have ceased to fear
and honor God. ... I would wish if it were possible
to leave these men without preacher or pastor, and
let them live like swine. There is no longer any fear
or love of God among them. After throwing off the
yoke of the Pope every one wishes to live as he
pleases."

This declaration of Luther is significant, and testi-
monies from almost every writer of eminence, who
touches upon the state of society as regards religion
and morals in every country where Protestantism had
a foothold in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,

Luther and Justification 131

might be adduced in confirmation of it. So notorious
was the debauchery of the followers of Luther that
it became a common saying when persons proposed to
engage in drunkenness and revelry : "We will spend
the day like Luther mis."

The new Gospel did not even make Luther himself
better. He said : '1 confess . . . that I am more negli-
gent than I was under the Pope and there is now
nowhere such an amount of earnestness under the
Gospel, as was formerly seen among monks and
priests." (Walch, IX. 1311.) "If God," he says,
"had not closed my eyes and if I had foreseen these
scandals, I would never have begun to teach the Gos-
pel." (Walch, VI, 920.)

"But it is not necessary," as a writer in the American
Catholic Quarterly Review says, "to go back to past
ages of the so-called Reformation to decide whether it
has produced a real reformation as regards morality.
It is only necessary to look upon facts existing all
around us to-day. Protestantism has existed now for
nearly four hundred years and has had ample time to
show what improvement it can efTect or has effected
as regards morality. Yet, notwithstanding all the
efforts still made, here and there, to perpetuate the old
traditional falsehood of the superiority of Protestan-
tism over the Catholic religion in promoting morality,
the most thoughtful and candid even of Protestants
award the palm to Catholicity ; and the general verdict
of public opinion is fast confirming this decision. It
is not necessary to refer to official statistics of crime
and social immorality, which have been published and
repubhshed, analyzed, and exhaustively discussed by
such non-Catholic writers as Laing, IVIayhew, Wolsey,
Bayard Taylor, Dr. Bellows, and many others, to prove
that Protestant countries are not in advance of those
where Catholicity predominates as respects morality."

"It is acknowledged by almost all who have any real
knowledge of the subject that in point of purity of
morals Catholic Spain and the really Catholic part of
the people of France and Italy are immeasurably above

132 The Facts About Luther

the people of Protestant Germany, Denmark, Sweden
and Norway; and that judged by every test applicable
to morality — female chastity, integrity and sobriety —
Catholic Ireland is far in advance of Protestant Scot-
land. The inhabitants of Tyrol — during past centuries
and to-day the most staunch and exclusive Catholic
population in Europe — beyond all denial, stand above
the people of Protestant Switzerland with regard to
morality. The lazzaroni of Naples, for years the stand-
ing gibe and jest of Protestant travelers, are immeas-
urably less debased as regards morality than persons on
the same social plane in England. Coming nearer
home — for every act of brigandage, murder, or rob-
bery in Italy and Spain, there might be truthfully re-
counted ten in the United States."

'•'This brings us still closer to our point. Compare
the virtue and integrity here, in our country, and in
England, of the persons who are under the respective
influences of the CathoHc religion and of Protestantism,
and the general public voice ascribes superiority to the
former. Where is the boasted morality of New Eng-
land, the cradle and home of Puritanism ? How stand,
as regards social morals or honesty, the descendants
of the Tilgrim Fathers?' And what are the moral
consequences of their principles as they have per-
meated the public mind outside of persons who believe
in and practise the Catholic religion? Witness the
countless prosecutions for bigamy, for the violations
of the obligation of the marriage relation, for adultery
and seduction ; the applications for divorces, and the
scandals, frauds, etc. which crowd the records of our
courts and the reportorial columns of the newspapers."

'Tt seems that God, in His justice, had determined
summarily and at once to dispel the traditional delu-
sion of the superiority of Protestantism aver the
Catholic rehgion in point of morals, and to refute once
and forever the false charge, so long and persistently
brought against the latter, by compelling people to open
their eyes and look at the facts staring them in the

Luther and Justification 133

It is not a pleasant task to tell the story of hideous
crime, no matter by whom committed. We would that
there were no sin in the world to record. If we allude
to the gross immoralities that followed everywhere
among the peoples that adopted the soul-destroying
principles announced by Luther, we do so with feel-
ings of shame, and in self-defense against the gratui-
tous allegations of our adversaries. We certainly do
not wish to prove that all Catholics avail themselves
of the means their Church provides for attaining to
sanctity of life, nor do we wish to excuse or palliate
the corruption of morals sometimes found in their be-
havior. We cannot close our eyes to the painful fact
that too many professing Catholics, far from living up
to the teachings of their Church, are sources of melan-
choly scandal. "It must, however, be that scandals
come," but their occasional occurrence among the mem-
bers of the Church do not invalidate or impair the
sacred and efficacious means she furnishes for holi-
ness of life. We know that some Catholics are a dis-
grace to their religion and that they ought to be much
better than they are considering the potent means ever
at their call. Yet, with Cardinal Gibbons, we will add.
quoting his words in the Catholic World: "If we are
not very much better than our neighbors, we are not
any worse; and are not to be hounded down with the
cry of vice and immorality by a set of Pharisees who
are constantly lauding their own superiority, and thank-
ing God they are so much better than we poor
Catholics."

We have been careful in this paper to furnish the
reader with Luther's own words describing his teach-
ing on the absolute uselessness of all the hitherto, and
even now generally accepted means for avoiding sin
and helpful for attaining sanctification. A cursory
examination of the system he fathered shows it, as Fr.
Johnston points out, to be absolutely "at variance with
all Christian ideas on the subject both before his age
and even now. Even a modern Protestant by his de-
votion to prayer and penance and good works practi-

134 The Facts About Luther

cally repudiates this system of morality of a man whom
he otherwise so bHndly and inconsistently venerates as
a great 'Reformer.' In fact, such a system is contra-
dictory to even the most elementary psychology and
every day experience. It is at variance with the idea
of penance and sin held by even the non-Christian
religions such as Buddhism and Brahminism — as such
it is about the lowest and the most hedonistic in the
whole history of religions. In a word it is unique.
There is nothing in Christianity, ancient, medieval or
modern, like it — nor in any other religion. Followed
out to its logical conclusion, it can end only in unre-
stricted moral license. The reason that it is not fol-
lowed out by Protestants is partly because they practi-
cally deny in practise the Lutheran faith they hold in
theory, partly because they are, as a class, densely
ignorant of the real crass Luther and Lutheranism ;
partly because their very common sense and sense of
decency and week-day psychology save them from their
own faith."

From Luther*s own words we learn the distinctly
heretical and truth destroying character of his teaching
which struck at the roots of man's relation with God.
Faith with him, as Anderdon remarks, "was no longer
what it had been through all previous Christianity, the
supernatural grace, the gift from Heaven, by which
man is enabled to accept and to retain a Revelation
external to himself and in its fullness. It became
simply a strong persuasion of one's individual accep-
tance with God. Faith as propounded by the Church
contemplates God, and what He has said and done,
warned and promised ; faith as propounded by Luther,
regards the individual, who takes hold upon and appro-
priates to himself the results of what God has done.
The essence of Catholic faith lies in God's Catholic
or universal truthfulness, projected in outline upon
His mystical Body, through all place and time. It
is independent of individual minds and as high
above 'religious opinions' as the heavens are above the
earth. The Lutheran faith, so called, is a mongrel

Luther AND Justification 135

thing, partly personal belief, partly hope of acceptance,
except that it rests on a personal assurance, and so is
allied to presumption. Catholic faith is the mainspring
of active obedience, 'working one's salvation' ; the
Lutheran substitute is a principle of a dreamy acqui-
escence, that contemplates "a finished work" on the
part of the Savior. Again the Church teaches, that
faith, on the one hand, and on the other hand love or
the state of grace, though they have great mutual re-
lations, are distinct gifts. The former may exist with-
out the other, as in the case of every bad Catholic, who
will be lost, without true repentance for his personal
sins, in spite of his baptism and of the most unclouded
faith. With Luther, faith does not imply distinct dog-
matic truth ; its creed is summed up in this, 'I am a
justified man ; therefore I cannot lose my faith and fall
from acceptance ; therefore sin in me is not imputed as
sin.' " This is Luther's teaching, novel, soothing, agree-
able to human nature, if you will, but it is not Christ's
nor that of His Church which is His organ of com-
municating supernatural truth and the means of ac-
quiring sanctification.

Luther's teaching may appeal to such as decline to
look things in the face and want the subjective in re-
ligion, in lieu of the objective dogmatic truth; but it
can never appeal to the enlightened of God who know
that His will is their sanctification, and, that they must
labor in this life by good works, by prayer, by the
observance of the Commandments, and the reception
of the Sacraments, to make their calling and election
sure. Faith and good works are the only terms on
which men can purchase happiness here and hereafter ;
every other scheme is a deceit of Lucifer to draw souls
away from the love and service of God.

This statement is not made without foundation.
Read Luther's work against "The Mass and the Or-
dination of Priests," where he tells of his famous dis-
putation with the ''father of lies" who accosted him
"at midnight" and spoke to him with "a deep, powerful
voice," causing "the sweat to break forth" from his

136 The Facts About Luther

brow and his "heart to tremble and beat." In that
celebrated conference, of which he was an unexcep-
tional witness and about which he never entertained
the slightest doubt, he says plainly and unmistakingly
that "the devil spoke against the Mass, and Mary and
the Saints" and that, moreover, "Satan gave him the
most unqualified approval of his doctrine of justifica-
tion by faith alone." Who now, we ask in all sincerity,
can be found, except those appallingly blind to truth,
to accept such a man, approved by the enemy of souls,
as a spiritual teacher and entrust to his guidance their
eternal welfare?

CHAPTER V.
Luther on the Church and the Pope.

ONE of the most certain and best established facts
in the records of mankind is the existence of
the CathoHc Church, and her admirable career through-
out the ages.

As the true Messias, Jesus had come to found the
Kingdom of God on earth — that visible and universal
kingdom, that new alliance, which, according to the
prophets, He should inaugurate for all ages to come.
And, in point of fact, Jesus founded this Kingdom
by instituting His Church. He foretold the persecu-
tions that she would meet, and the continual struggles
that she would have to endure in all the centuries ;
but He declared that the powers of the enemy would
never prevail against His Church, because He will be
with her, and she will last to the end of the world.
And the Church, which has now existed for nearly
twenty centuries, stands before all as an undeniable
fact attesting the fulfillment of this promise.

The Divinity of the Christian religion is a fact which
all the efforts of sophistical criticism are powerless to
deny or dispute. Witness its rapid and wonderful
propagation, notwithstanding the thousands and thou-
sands of obstacles that opposed it; its preservation un-
changed amid continual terrible assaults ; the testimony
of millions and millions of martyrs who died for the
faith ; the sanctity of the Church in spite of the defects
of some of her members : the existence of miracles,
which illuminate the history of the Church, and even
to-(iay occur before the eyes of unbelievers themselves;
the excellence and sublimity of the morals and dogmas
of the Christian religion, with which those of other
faiths can bear no comparison ; the adherence of the
greatest intellects to the teachings of Christianity.
Weigh all these facts and behold so many unanswer-
able arguments that demonstrate the Divinity of the
religion which Jesus Christ established in order that

138 The Facts About Luther

all men for all time should come to salvation. All
considered, therefore, we may conclude with Richard
of St. Victor : **0 Lord ! if we are mistaken, it is
Thou who has led us astray ; because this faith is
proved by such signs and prodigies that Thou alone
couldst work them."

Luther, in the earlier period of his life, realized that
he and the rest of men could come to salvation only
by the knowledge and practise of this Religion, of
which Jesus Christ is the Soul and the Founder. He
knew, as demonstrated by Faith and Reason, that
Jesus Christ and. true Religion are only to be found
in the Catholic Church, where alone the Master
teaches, dispenses His graces and communicates His
Divine spirit. In common with every believer of his
time he was aware of the existence of this Church
and he recognized that this Church, as originally estab-
lished in the land of his birth and as it had prevailed
there for centuries, was in harmony with that pre-
vailing throughout Christianity and dating back beyond
all civil institutions, and was the one sole organization
established by Christ and endowed by Him with per-
petuity to preach His Gospel for the salvation of the
world. As a layman he knew all this, as a priest he
taught all this, and as a doctor of Divinity he was
ever prepared to advocate and defend all this against
all comers. For years he continued true to his con-
victions and to all appearances exemplified them in his
daily life. But, as time went on, he gradually became
remiss in the discharge of his spiritual duties and little
by little came to abandon them entirely ; wherefore he
lost the graces of his vocation and in consequence his
faith diminished and his allegiance to the Church
weakened. By his own admission, as we have seen,
he grew careless in the performance of his monastic
duties and daily violated the plain and sacred obliga-
tions to which he bound himself voluntarily by most
solemn vows. Owing to the habitual neglect of prayer
and meditation and the constant infraction of the rules
of his Order, he went down the scale of perfection

Luther on the Church and the Pope 139

step by step, until, as is invariably the case in such
conditions, his perception of divine truth waned and
grew weaker day by day until finally he fell into a
state of opposition and revolt against the eternal veri-
ties and the one true medium of their communication
to mankind. Abandoning the light of heaven which
comes from persevering prayer, and carried away by
his own self-sufficiency, he began to question, then to
ignore, and, finally, to deny the Divine authority of
the Church in which he was reared. He seemed to
forget that the Church is the body of Christ, the in-
dividual sacrament of unity with Christ and through
Christ with God, and that "whosoever revolteth," ac-
cording to the dictum of the Holy Spirit, "and hath
not the doctrine of Christ, hath not God." But he
cared little for so solemn a pronouncement and longed
only for emancipation from the authority of the laws
of God and of His Church to follow his own ever
varying caprice and fancy.

Possessed now by the spirit of disorder and oppo-
sition to law, and jealous of the authority of the
Church and the God-given supremacy of her Head, he
conceived the idea of a new religion, which he thought
in his vanity he was capable of formulating. Forth-
with, without the shadow of a pretense of direct and
Divine commission, he began to construct what he
foolishly considered a church, and, then assumed
the right to inflict and impose his self-made work
upon his fellow-men. In his wild scheme he aimed
at getting rid of the Church's sacramental system and
banishing altogether from men's minds the very idea
of an outward and visible sign of an inward and
invisible grace. He intended to take from men the
only certain voice, which, speaking in the name of
God and representing Him, delivered infallible truth
to the world and announced authoritatively the means
whereby sanctification and salvation were to be se-
cured. He purposed, in a wor 1, to overthrow, an-
nihilate and displace the Mother Church, and thus
deprive men of her Divine guidance unto truth, moral-

140 The Facts About Luther

ity and life eternal. In his conceit he imagined men
should be left wholly to their own unaided and fallible
reason, and, hence he proclaimed the right of all with-
out any Church interference to follow in matters of
belief their own intellect as sole and final judge. In
advancing this claim, so destructive to the authority
of the Church, he asserted a right never before rec-
ognized ; a right, let it be understood, never known
under any other form of revealed religion; a right
never allowed even under the Jewish theocracy; and
a right hardly ever exercised among the more en-
lightened pagans. His program was one of the most
daring in all human histor}'. Though he had his mis-
givings about the propriety and success of his sacrile-
gious undertaking, yet he hardened his heart against
these, and imagined that though many other "insti-
gators of heresies and breeders of sects" in the fifteen
hundred years before his time failed in measuring their
strength against the Church of Christ, he could not
but triumph. His attitude was bold, defiant, arrogant,
persecuting. He would overthrow and completely de-
stroy the Church of his fathers. But the Founder
of this Church decreed that the powers of hell would
not prevail against His institution, and Luther, before
he closed his eyes in death, saw that his protest was
unavailing and that his self-made substitute for God's
enduring work was doomed to meet the fate of all the
other religious innovations that scandalized preceding
ages.

Luther came by degrees to feel that he was some-
thing more than Church or Pope or Councils. In his
vanity he put himself above all the great and learned
lights of the Church and claimed to know more than
all the Schoolmen, Doctors and Fathers who in every
age were noted for their clear, precise and exact ex-
position of God's revelation. To his way of thinking
all the great and saintly writers and defenders of the
Church, Jerome, Chrysostom, Cyprian, Basil, Augus-
tine, Thomas Aquinas and the rest, "fell into error"
and "were untrustworthy teachers ; pools out of which

Luther on the Church and the Pope 111

Christians had been drinking impure and loathsome
water/' In his mad ravings he called them ''knaves,
dolts, asses, and infernal blasphemers," ''knowing
very little about the Gospel, easily deceived by the
devil, and deserving to be in hell rather than in
heaven." The majestic unity and the calm, unchang-
ing enunciation of truth which characterized tlie
writings of the Fathers in all the ages, displeased,
annoyed, and angered this false prophet. He would
have none of them or their teachings, except when
some fellow-rebel against Divine authority was in col-
lision with him or when he had to appeal to some
authority beyond himself, to refute an adversary, as
for instance, when he has to put down Zwingle. Other-
wise he had no use for the recognized and authoritative
exponents of the faith once delivered to the saints.
They were in the way of the advancement of his
nefarious scheme and their influence and testimony
to the uniform and universal belief of mankind
throughout the ages should be destroyed. The Fathers
and the Doctors were against his program ; they were
one and all, "asses, rascals, beasts. Antichrists" and
"unworthy of a hearing." He alone was right ; h^-
knew more than all of them put together; and, as they
"were authors of impious things, empty declaimers, of
no weight whatever, theological abortions, fountains of
error," he thought he was called by heaven to speak
out and tell mankind it needed a new church, that
the old one was alien to the world and must be de-
stroyed, and that he, the "doctor of doctors," as he
called himself, alone had the "doctrines from Heaven"
which all henceforward must receive from his mouth
lest they "be everlastingly condemned."

Luther now claimed more authority than any Pope
ever did. In his heart he knew that the work he was
undertaking was unwarranted, unjustifiable and out-
rageously sacrilegious. But the spirit of rebellion
against constituted authority, especially in the ecclesi-
astical order, took possession of him and nothing now
would stop him from sounding the trumpet of battle

142 The Facts About Luther

against the ancient Church, her teaching and her dis-
cipHne. To escape the shame of his atrocity, he, as
deceptive as he was subtle, began his work of destruc-
tion by minghng with the crowds to win disciples, who
were only too glad to ''take revenge on Christianity for
having so long interrupted the pleasures of the
world." To these he preached rebellion and awoke
that chord which responded in the heart of Eve to
the tempter's first whisper : ''Why hath God com-
manded you?" Directing his shafts against the force
of law, to give zest to his harangues, he spoke not
"those things that are right," as Scripture enjoins,
but, "pleasant things," "errors" such as the populace
who long to be deceived glory in, and hence, knowing
the open road to an assured popularity and fame, he
talked loudly and boisterously of the misdeeds, more
or less real, of some of the members of the Church
and of certain abuses which actually had crept into
the Church.

This was a very clever and cunning way to inflame
the passions of the lawless and the wicked, and to
divert attention from his own heretical teachings and
notoriously scandalous behavior. During all this
time he was seemingly unconscious of his own faults,
which sadly needed reformation and removal. He,
was, however, wide-awake and ever on the lookout for
the shortcomings and the defects of the brethren in
the household of the faith in order to use these as
a weapon against the Church and thus unfairly place
responsibility where it did not belong. He seemed
to take a special delight in keeping his nose fixed at
the leak in the sewer and then rudely exposing the
evils discovered in the lives of some whose personal
conduct in certain directions was in conflict with the
lofty and elevated teachings they professed. The
illustrious deeds and the holy lives of the milHons
that were true to their holy calling were for the
moment conveniently forgotten and the corruption of
the few that followed the misuse of wealth and
power he emphasized and magnified for the outcry of

Luther ox the Church and the Pope 143

men who themselves were anything but "reformed
in the newness of their mind." The shortcomings
of some, no doubt, presented then as now grievous
stumbling blocks and tended to disedify. The Founder
of the Church predicted that scandals would arise,
but at the same time He was careful to warn all
against using these as a motive for disloyalty and a
basis for disobedience to legitimate authority. We
do not wish to deny that some of the brethren,
Luther himself for instance, were not always careful
to exemplify in their lives the salutary morality which
the Church ever and constantly preached to her mem-
bers. It should be remembered, however, that what-
ever self-indulgence, pride, ambition, and political
profligacy existed now and then, were all traceable
to a disregard of the Church's teachings and were com-
mitted in violation of her disciplinary regulations. The
Church, therefore, could not rightly be held respon-
sible for the misdeeds of her unfaithful children.
Whatever abuses existed always sprang from the
personal and not the official side of the Church ;
they were not inherent in the Church ; and did not
originate in her essential constitution, nor grow out
of it. It is only gross ignorance or malignity that
attempts to make the Church responsible for the mis-
deeds and indiscretions of her unfaithful and de-
generate members. It is remarkable, however, that
in all matters of doctrine and morals not one among
the unfaithful of all times ever directly or remotely
set himself at variance, as Luther did, with the teach-
ings and practices of historical Christianity. No bad
Catholic before his day attempted to set up so false a
Christianity; none ever so tampered with the original
deposit of the true faith ; none ever dared assail the
organization which God had established, and which He
commanded all to obey and respect if they desired
eternal life.

When Luther discovered that he could not frighten
the Head of the Church, intimidate legitimate author-
ity, and impose his special brand of reform, which

144 The Facts About Luther

was no reform at all, he was greatly disappointed and
disturbed. Chagrined and wounded in his vanity, he
grew litigious, vengeful and abusive. He had every
opportunity in his chosen field, had he so willed, to
seek out and minister to the lost and wandering sheep.
Like many saintly souls in every age, he might by
preaching, prayer and example have helped towards
that reformation of abuses which the Church is ever
attempting by canons of discipline, papal, provin-
cial, diocesan, but this ministry of zeal and salva-
tion, within the Church and not out of it, was not to
his liking. What he wished was not the restoration
of the lost and the reformation of the imperfect whose
abuses he criticised, but the destruction of the sheep-
fold established by the One Great Shepherd of souls
and the overthrow of His successor's supreme author-
ity. Little aware of his folly and carried away by
an uncontrollable anger, he set to work not only to
divide but to destroy the Kingdom of Christ and wreck
the Bark of Peter.

The special weapons he used in his opposition
against the mystical Body of Christ and its represen-
tative on earth, were calumny, abuse and misrepre-
sentation. Though the Church has the right to have
said of her nothing but what is true, yet Luther, in
order to advance his nefarious scheme, twisted and
altered and changed her well-known doctrines, which
had remained intact and uncorrupted for centuries, to
deceive the unwary masses unable to discern the
malignant poison of heresy. Arrogating to himself
more authority than any Pope ever did, he falsely
alleged, that "the Church founded by Jesus Christ
was corrupt in its very constitution ; that from the
temple of God it had become a synagogue of Satan ;
that its visible head, the Pope, was Antichrist and
that the Papacy must be destroyed." He contended
in a pamphlet that the Papacy ''is an institution of
the Devil;" and he abused all Popes, Bishops,
Priests, Monks, and Catholics in general, in the
coarsest and most brutal manner. Possessed of a

Luther ON THE Church AND THE Pope 145

satanical hatred of all authority, save what he claimetj
for himself, he imagined that the Church was all
wrong and should be cast aside as a human inven-
tion, despite the fact that her Founder was Jesus
Christ, who promised the assistance of the Holy Ghost
to protect her from error and who declared He would
preserve her to the end of time to spread the glad
tidings of redemption. Disregarding the magnificenl
unity of faith which reigned during centuries before
his day, the result not of ignorance or indifference,
but of enlightened science and spiritual earnestness
due to the powerful teachings of the missionaries and
the profound expositions of the Scholastic theologians,
he, in his brazen conceit, thought the time had come
**to deliver Europe from the yoke of the Popes and
the superstitions of an idolatrous worship." What he
thought was needed in his day were his ways of ex-
plaining the truths and maxims of the Gospel, and his
new doctrines, entirely different from and opposed to
those which were taught and had been taught through-
out historical Christianity. Thus his avowed object
was to displace the Church founded for all time by
Jesus Christ, and, in her stead rear up a new Chris-
tianity, form a new Scripture, prescribe a new faith
and establish a new worship, something never dreamt
of or recognized before his day. "The Bible," he
alleged, ''furnished the necessary instruction and
authority for such an undertaking," and forthwith he
declared that it and it alone, left to the caprice of
individuals and interpreted without the traditional
teaching of a Church Divinely empowered to safe-
guard and explain it, was the sole and ultimate
criterion of the Christian's faith. 'The Bible and
nothing but the Bible" became the familiar Prot-
estant formula, which, as history tells, wherever it
was followed out in practice, invariably resulted in
confusion and produced as many religions as think-
ers or semi-thinkers or no thinkers at all. An open
Bible cannot render and never will render man's private
judgment infallible. Freedom of interpretation means

146 The Facts About Luther

the destruction of all sure doctrine, the death-
blow to truth handed down, the tearing asunder of
religious union and the beginning of endless dissen-
sions.

The life work Luther now proposed to himself had
for its object the ignoble purpose of destroying the
Church, disrupting the solidarity of united Christian
belief, and leaving men without a safe guide as to the
verities which the Almighty wished His subjects to
know and the worship He required. The reformer's
genius, if we may dignify his spirit of destruction by
that name, ended here. The Church, which in her
appointment is as divine as the creation of the visible
firmament of the heavens, he would not have; and
yet to replace it or offer a worthy substitute, even
were this possible, he of all men was manifestly in-
competent. Ever vacillating, ambiguous, contradict-
ory, he was utterly incapable of formulating a clear,
well-defined, unhesitating system of belief to replace
that of the old Divinely established Church. It was
a special characteristic of him, as every student of his
life knows, to deny one day what he professed the day
before. At one moment he would declare the Church
infallible, and, the next he would say it is fallible. He
urged that all should submit to the Councils of the
Church, and then that they must not. He maintained
that the civil government had power over the min-
isters of religion, and then denied it. He admitted
that there was a hell, and afterwards questioned its
existence. He taught that the sacraments conferred
grace, and advocated the contrary. He claimed that
there were seven sacraments and then reduced them
to two, increased them to three, and finally to five. He
maintained each of the sacraments and denied five of
them. In baptism he both admitted and denied that
grace was conferred ; and taught that original sin was
effaced and that it was not. He maintained that there
was a purgatory, and that we should pray for the
dead, and then denied it.

These are only a few specimens of Luther's con-

Luther on the Church and the Pope 147

stant variation in teaching. They show how uncertain
his attitude was regarding religious truth, and, there-
fore how unfitted he was for the deHcate task of
framing a new profession of faith which could in
any sense be presented and maintained before an ex-
acting and intelligent world. His associates in rebel-
lion recognized this uncertainty and often called at-
tention to his lack of solid foundation in religious ex-
position. Cochlaeus says : "The seven-headed Luther
everywhere contradicts himself and his own teaching."
It is, moreover, a matter of history that when the
meeting of the Diet at Augsburg made it necessary
for the Protestant party to state distinctly its faith,
Luther sinks to a secondary place. All knew that he
was as unstable as water and could not be trusted to
adhere to any pronouncement for the brief space of
twenty-four hours. The Augsburg Confession, which
is to this day the creed of the Lutherans, and printed
in the beginning of some of their prayer books, is not
the work of Luther. It was drawn up by Melanch-
thon, who corresponded with Luther, then at Coburg,
but did not adhere to his views.

Fair-minded Protestant authors nave all along ad-
mitted the woeful vagueness, inconsistency and per-
petual contradictions everywhere noticeable in their
hero's pronouncements on religious questions, but,
strange to say, many of them do not consider his
irreconcileable differences in dealing with eternal truth
as real defects. They very cleverly but deceitfully
evade the real issue by endeavoring to make their
readers believe that his aberrations in doctrinal mat-
ters only show forth their formulator's wonderful
intellectual versatility, vigor, and wealth. These writers
have eyes and see not that the contradictions so
noticeable in their master's pronouncements on all
matters religious unfit him to be in any sense a reliable
exponent of Eternal Law and that his wild and reck-
less inconsistency in presenting his new-fangled ideas,
opposed entirely to all Divine ordinances, disqualify
him as a religious teacher and a spiritual guide to

148 The Facts About Luther

whom any one could with safety entrust the care of
his salvation. If the minds of such writers are not
warped by prejudice they should realize that when
Luther set himself up as a religious leader and claimed
a divine mission to teach truth, he should at least
have been clear-headed enough to give his hearers an
exact, definite, and consistent answer to any and all
the vital problems affecting the interests of men's
souls. This Luther did not and could not do. He
never knew for a moment what he was going to
teach next. He despised the Church with her deter-
mined, fixed and unalterable declaration of truth, and,
thus, like unto "the heathen and the publican," his per-
ception of divine truth became obscured, leaving him
and all who were ever led by him, like ''children," as
St. Paul says, "tossed to and fro with every wind of
doctrine." Eph. IV, 14. His "wickedness," to use
the word of St. Paul at the end of the text just quoted
to describe the promoters of false doctrine, taught men
to "dissolve Jesus," deny the teachings of His Gos-
pel and impose an impious travesty of Christianity
that preaches "Peace; and there is no peace." Look
out on the Christian world to-day with its hundred
and more warring denominations, and behold how few
of the original articles of faith have survived among
the disciples and followers of Luther.

Luther's advocates might, if their eyes are not
filmed, read with profit the following words which
their master penned when he had genuine misgivings
at the outset of his apostasy. "How many times," he
writes, "have I not asked myself with bitterness the
same question which the Papists put me ; Art thou
alone wise? Darest thou imagine that all mankind
have been in error for so long a series of years? T
am not so bold as to assert that I have been guided
in this affair by God. How will it be, if, after all,
it is thou thyself who art wrong and art thou in-
volving in thy error so many souls who will then be
eternally damned?" Some time after he wrote these
words and reflected that "it is a terrible thing and

Luther on the Church and the Pope 149

full of danger to lift one's voice in the Church of
God," he felt that he ''could heartily wish to bury all
in silence and pass a sponge over what he had writ-
ten," knowing that he would "have to render an ac-
count to God for every heedless word." Compunction
came too late. In spite of all his regrets he never
had the courage to take in hand "the sponge" he
spoke of to wipe out the slanderous scribblings and
wanton perversions of truth he penned against the
Church of God and her infallible Head. He went
into eternity without a sign of repentance, and died
as he had lived, blaspheming the Church which he
had misrepresented and abused, but which he could
not either overthrow or destroy. His end was sad
beyond expression. Would it not be well whilst there
is time, for all, who like him, revile, hate, and mis-
represent the Church and her doctrinal virtues and
ethics, to carefully ponder over their master's mis-
take? The monomania of opposing the Church of
Christ and decrying her authority over the souls of
men is a disease that all afflicted therewith should
rid themselves at once for it entails ruin for time
and eternity.

Luther openly and unblushingly maintained that the
Church founded by Jesus Christ had fallen into error
in her teachings and that her doctrines needed change.
This outrageous calumny has been assiduously cir-
culated time and time again since its formulator first
gave it to the world and thousands upon thousands
have been only too ready to believe it, notwithstand-
ing its falseness, untenableness and, what is worse,
its blasphemy against Christ and His Church. The
noisy talk of degenerate demagogues who make an
easy livelihood by spreading discontent among audi-
ences that are only too ready to listen to everything
defamatory of the Church cannot, however, silence
truth or prevent the fair-minded and intelligent in
the community from searching for it as it is in Christ
Jesus and His Church.

On a little reflection, it will appear plain to the

160 The Facts About Luther

unbiased mind that what Luther declared concerning
the Church could not be substantiated for the very
good and solid reason that, "if," as Preston, a dis-
tinguished convert from Episcopalianism, says, "the
Church had erred in her teaching of the articles of
faith confided to her by her Divine Founder, then there
never had been a Church, or if there had been a
Church, it had not been the Church of Christ. The
Church of Christ, if it be the Church of Christ, can-
not err in matters of faith and morals, for the moment
it errs, it is no longer the Church of Christ, but the
Church of the devil. What can there be more plain
than this? That cannot be called the Church of
Christ which teaches error; but if the Church of
Christ can teach error, then according to the assump-
tion, it IS the Church of Christ and it is not the
Church of Christ at one and the same time. It is
the Church of Christ because, according to the assump-
tion of the moment, it is so called; it is not the
Church of Christ, because it teaches falsehood, and
cannot, therefore, be the agent of God in any sense.
The very idea of a Church having erred in faith de-
stroys it root and branch, and leaves nothing what-
ever behind it. Again, this theory is open to another
consideration. If the Church erred, then Christ broke
His word, for He declared that it should not err, and
he said to Peter on whom He built His Church : The
gates of hell shall never prevail against my Church,'
and T will guide it into all truth.' Now, if the
Church erred, the gates of hell did prevail against
the Church and Christ did not keep His promise.
But you are to have a new Church and Christ is to
be its author. But Christ has broken His word, ac-
cording to the assumption of Luther and his follow-
ers and, therefore, is not worthy of confidence. Then
how can you trust Him again? And yet you are to
believe, in one and the same mental act, that Christ
broke His word and is not worthy of confidence and
that He is worthy of confidence and accept a new
Christianity at His hands. Every logical mind will

Luther on the Church and the Pope 161

easily grasp the utter inconsistency of such theories
as these."

Whatever may be said, it is evident that the idea
of the error of the Church in matters of faith and
morals is suicidal to the Church itself. "The Church
of God," says St. Paul, "is the pillar and the ground
of truth." It holds up the truth to the nations and
on it the truth rests. Now break it down and where
is the pillar and the ground of truth? So when
Luther taught that the Church had lapsed into error
and when his imitators continue his wicked work by
constructing religious organizations which they know
to be human and not Divine, the work of man and
not of God, each and all contribute their share in
the work of crippling, dividing and destroying the
Church Jesus Christ established as the organ of His
truth for all time, and, then, be it remembered, when
this Church passes away from the minds of men,
then will be obliterated the great bulwark of truth,
piety, and devotion. Eminent Protestants all along
have admitted the influence of the Church on the
nations' morality and civilization. "Withdraw that in-
fluence," the Rev. Dr. Boynton, a Congregational
minister of Brooklyn, N. Y., says, "and there would
be Bedlam within a month."

The Catholic Church has always claimed Christ
for her Founder and has proved her Divine mission
and her unchangeable teaching to the world. Eminent
non-Catholic divines acknowledge this. From a vast
number we select the late Dr. Briggs, a Protestant
Episcopalian theologian of New York, who under-
took to answer the question, 'Who or what is a
Catholic' in the American Journal of .Theology, a
periodical connected with the Chicago University.
"There can be no doubt," he writes, "that at the
close of the third century 'Roman' and 'Catholic' were
so closely allied that they were practically identical.
In other words, connection or communion with the
See of Rome was then, as now, a test and condition
of one's Catholicity." Dr. Briggs further maintained

152 The Facts About Luther

''that the Roman Catholic Church of our day is the
heir by unbroken descent of the CathoUc Church of
the second century." In his reading of early Chris-
tian literature he found the word "Catholic," to stand
for three things: (i) The vital unity oi the Church
of Christ; (2) the geographical unity of the Church
extending throughout the world; (3) the historical
unity of the Church in apostolic tradition.

Applying these tests to modern conditions, Dr.
Briggs finds: ''Geographical unity has been lost by
the Protestant Churches, by the Church of England
more than any other, for the Church of England is
so strictly a national church that she is confined to the
Anglo-Saxon race. She has not only no communion
with the Roman Church, but she has also no corn-
munion with the sister national churches. . . .If we;
(the Episcopalians) would be Catholic, we cannot*
become Catholic by merely calling ourselves by that * '
name. Unless the name corresponds with the thing,
it is a sham and a shame."

The Catholic Church, then, has been well nigh two
thousand years in this world of change, and at no
age of her eventful history has her teaching been
at variance with that of her Divine Founder. No
reliable historian notes that after the death of the
last of the Apostles a single change or increase ever
took place in the revelation or deposit of faith con-
fided to the Church's keeping. Men, like Luther,
accuse the Church of variation and, some like Toc-
hackert, go as far as to say that she manufactured new
dogmas, for instance, the Immaculate Conception of
the Virgin Mary and the Infallibility of the Pope.
Needless to say all and every accusation of this nature
is without the slightest foundation. To charge the
Church with the manufacture of new dogmas is merely
a scheme invented by designing men to deceive the
unwary and prevent them from searching after the
truth. The idea is rooted in misconception, bigotry,
and preiudice.

The Church does not tolerate and never has in all .

Luther ON THE Church AND THE Pope 153

the ages of her existence tolerated novelty or new-
ness of doctrine. She very wisely admits a progress,
an amplification, and a development of her teaching
for the fuller and better understanding and compre-
hension of Divine truth. What has been announced
from the beginning she cannot change and never has
changed ; what she has done and may do at some
future time, w^as, under the strain of controversy,
the attacks of heresy or other causes, to increase
the knowledge of the people regarding the fixed doc-
trines of Christ and bring out in clearer light and
minuter detail the belief contained in the original
deposit of faith handed down from Apostolic times.
Dr. Mausbach, in the "Germania" of June 12, 1902,
very pertinently observes : "As the germs of truth
that lay dormant in the bosom of the early Church
were, like the grain of mustard-seed, to expand later
on to the fullness of their life and growth, so it has
come to pass that the simple and germinal elements
of Divine truth that appeared in the teachings of the
apostles have, at a later stage of the development of
God's kingdom, been more fully differentiated and
more definitely related.'*

The Church has never assumed the right to for-
mulate new teachings, manufacture new dogmas and
impose new doctrines. She has, however, the right
to define Divine truth, to amplify it, and give it new
and fuller explanation as necessity may demand. This
right she exercises when she makes an infallible decla-
ration concerning a dogma which Is already a part
of the original deposit of belief. These definitions
of belief are not to be construed into other than
formal and explicit declarations of the faith she
held from the beginning. A new form of creed to
safeguard her teaching can never with her imply a
new doctrine. Progress in the understanding of the
faith is her motto, but change never. This view
has been altogether ignored by those who are anxious
to charge the Church with making a change in her
teaching, but all scholars worthy of the name are

154 The Facts About Luther

agreed that she has been all along and is to-day in
ail doctrinal pronouncements exactly in accord with
the truth which Christ commissioned her to deliver
to the world. Heresy and schism there have been,
but a mighty defender has at all times come forward
to crush the head of error, and the Church has gone
steadily on with her God-given mission to teach all
things whatsoever Christ entrusted to her keeping.
Surely there can be none so illogical as to deny the
force of tradition. Yet tradition compels the admis-
sion of the Church's Apostolic doctrine. This doc-
trine came by the blood and the sacrifices of millions
of martyrs to Luther's day, and it has remained intact
and unchanged ever since to enlighten the minds and
comfort the souls of men.

Bougaud in his remarkable work, *T1 Cristianismo,
etc.," pays the following tribute to the unchangeable
character of the Church's teaching as embodied and
epitomized in the Apostles' Creed. *'For eighteen
centuries," he says, ''it has subsisted, not hidden away
in some secret part of a temple, not rolled up in a
bundle like a mummy, but thrown on the highways
of hum^anity,, sung in churches, repeated every day on
the lips and in the hearts of millions and millions of
mankind. And not only does it subsist to the shame
of all things else, which are fading and unstable, but
for eighteen centuries it has had to bear the brunt
of the most formidable intellectual warfare ever seen.
It had its beginning on the eve of Pentecost, and it
has not yet ceased. And as the sword of the spirit
is the miost beautiful to be found in the world, who
can tell the number and variety of attacks made against
it by its enemies. Now it is in close quarters with
the subtleties of Greek genius, as in the days of Arius,
Nestorius, and Eutyches ; now it meets the impetuous
eloquence of a time both trivial and sublime, as in
the epoch of Luther; again in this privileged country
of the globe (France), where raillery kills with pier-
cing witticisms, as in the period of Voltaire, or even
in our days of scientific delirium, with the astonish-

Luther ON THE Church AND THE Pope 155

ing discoveries of science not rightly understood.
Behold, for eighteen centuries this has continued;
eighteen centuries of the most terrible intellectual
warfare, maintained by the most choice intelligences.
Now, what has been the effect of it? Has a single
line of the symbol been cancelled? No, the Creed
subsists, unchanged, in its splendid integrity. It is
like one of those beautiful obelisks of red granite
brought from Egypt to the piazzas of Rome: the
storms of four thousand years have not been able to
break a fragment off them."

It is an incontrovertible fact that there is sham,
individualistic religion unfortunately prevailing widely
to-day. It had its origin in the rebellious heart of
Martin Luther, the father of the Reformation. There
and then originated the great gulf that divided the
ideals, principles and ethics of the religion of the gentle
Nazarene from the individualistic system which revived
and re-established the selfish characteristics of Pagan-
ism and which is falsely called by the name of Chris-
tianity to-day. Without right or sanction. Protestant-
ism has promulgated doctrines unknown and unheard-
of for sixteen centuries after Christ established His
Church. No wonder that many Protestant ministers
to-d^y complain of the inconsistency of the religion
that they avow. They realize that the terrible break
of the Reformation opened up an enormous chasm
which divides their belief from that which Jesus taught
and gave His Church to communicate to the world.
It could not be otherwise, for rebellion in matters
spiritual, as often in things material, enervates, dis-
rupts, and destroys. Outside the Church to-day Pro-
testant Biblical scholars have gone almost completely
and hopelessly away from the traditional Christ, true
God and true man. Dr. Loofs, a non-Catholic Profes-
sor of Oberlin College, Ohio, considers that the Ger-
man Lutheran scholars are past the day of battle for
the Divinity of Christ, for among many the belief in
the very Godhead and very ^^lanhood of Jesus Christ
has been practically given up. By the denial of the

156 The Facts About Luther

Divinity of Christ, they strike at the foundation doc-
trine of the Christian religion, and then the whole
fabric of revelation falls to pieces. The denial of the
Divinity of Christ involves the denial of the Divinity
of His Church, and in consequence men are left with-
out a Divine, infallible teacher to speak in God's name
and with His authority.

If men who long for the true religion of Christ
will only throw off the veil of human respect, acknowl-
edge their error, and humbly accept what Luther re-
jected, they will have no further necessity to seek for
what they want, for the Church, One, Holy, CathoHc,
and Apostolic, remains to-day to speak to all in the
name and by the authority of her Divine Founder,
and shall remain through all future ages, as she was
from the beginning, the sure fountain and arc of
salvation, upholding by a word and work the heavenly
sanctions of law, divine, international, social.

This Church is gradually becoming better known
and fair-minded men are coming in numbers to her
defence. One of these is the Rev. T. B. Thompson of
the Plymouth Congregational Church, Chicago. In a
recent sermon he said : "It must be admitted in all
fairness that popular ignorance, superficial knowledge,
and malicious slander have in many instances misrep-
resented the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
To contemplate her history is to admire her. Reforma-
tion, wars, empires and kingdoms have been arrayed
against her. After all these centuries she stands so
strong and so firmly rooted in the lives of millions
that she commands our highest respect. As an illus-
tration, she is the most splendid the world has ever
seen. Governments have arisen and gone to the grave
of the nations since her advent. Peoples of every
tongue have worshipped at her altars. The Roman
Catholic Church has stood solid for law and order.
Her police power in controlling millions untouched by
denominations has been great. When she speaks, legis-
lators, statesmen, politicians and governments stop to
listen, often to obey. In the realm of worship, her

Luther on the Church and the Pope 157

ministry has been of the highest. In employing beads,
statues, pictures, and music she has made a wise and
intelligent use of symbolism. Her use of the best in
music and painting has been the greatest single inspira-
tion to those arts, and her cathedrals are the shrines of
all pilgrims."

Brother Thompson never uttered truer words than
these. May the light spread till the minds of all
will be illuminated with the glory and splendor of
the truth as it is in Christ and in His Church !

Luther entertained not only a special hatred of the
Church, but also a life-long spirit of antagonism
towards its Supreme Head, the Pope. With him it
mattered not that the Bible defined God's Church as
*'the pillar and the ground of truth" ; he declared
it in his letter to Leo X. to *'be the jaws of Hell,
kept wide open by the anger of God." His opposi-
tion toward the Head of the Church was equally
pronounced. He knew that the Bible names Cephas
the "rock" and bids him ''confirm the brethren," yet
he dares in his ''Comment on Galatians V, 20," to des-
ignate the Pope as "the general heresiarch and the
head of all heresies." Thus to this erratic man, noth-
ing was good or acceptable that came out of Naza-
reth. When the Holy See and its Supreme Ruler
rose up before his mind, as they did constantly, he
was aroused to frenzy and it seemed as if "his heart
was changed from man's." In denying the position
and authority of the Successor of St. Peter, his lan-
guage was always characteristically vulgar, abusive,
and insulting. For one who claimed that "his mouth
was the mouth of Jesus Christ," we are astonished at
the vocabulary of insult and rancorous hate he con-
stantly launched against the Successor of St. Peter.
His maniacal ravings, which brushed aside the plain
fact that the Holy See from the Apostles' days to his
own had been recognized by the whole body of the
faithful as the Divinely constituted centre of unity
and truth, were especially marked in his work ''The
Papacy, an institution of the DeviV in which, "putting

158 The Facts About Luther

on cursing like a garment/' as the Psalmist says, he
did his utmost to malign and insult Catholics, and to
abuse and deride their spiritual chief. Luther lived
under the reign of four successive popes, and he knew
as well as any man of his day that not one of these
or any of their predecessors ever tampered with the
faith of Jesus Christ and did not deserve to be desig-
nated as "heresiarchs." Moreover, to call the Vicar of
Christ by the name of ''Heresiarch," was to incur the
woe pronounced against those who "put darkness
for light and light for darkness." Is. V, 20. But
we need not wonder at his attitude. No one becomes
a greater enemy to God's Church than he who has
left it; none reviles the amplitude of jurisdiction
emanating from God Himself and embodied in the
Governor of all the Faithful, more than he who has
fallen from it. ''Corruptio optimi pessima." In Luther
we have a flagrant example of St. Gregory's terrible
saying about bad priests, that there **are no men from
whom our Lord receives greater injury."

The Reformer's abuse of the Head of the Church
reaches its height in this frightful book published in
Wittenberg, 1545. The text was illustrated by his
friend, the famous painter Lucas Cranach, who, after
the author's suggestions, filled it with a number of
woodcuts which in obscenity and vulgarity have never
been surpassed. The purpose of this nasty work was
to ridicule and defame the Papal office in the eyes
of the lower classes. The following description of
what Luther thought of "the Pope and his devil's
kingdom" is furnished by Grisar and shows to what
extremes the Reformer went to ensure the success of
his work of destruction with the unthinking and vulgar
rabble.

"The picture with tlie Furies to which Luther refer.,
is that which represents the 'birth and origin of the
Pope,' as the Latin superscription describes it. Here
is depicted, in a peculiarly revolting way, what Luther
says in his 'Wider das Bapstum vom Teuffel gestifft,'
viz., the Pope's being born from the 'devil's behind.'

Luther on the Church and the Pope 169

The devil-mother is portrayed as a hideous woman
with a tail, from under which Pope and Cardinals are
emerging head foremost. Of the Furies one is suck-
ling, another carrying and the third rocking the cradle
of the Papal infant, whom the draughtsman every-
where depicts wearing the tiara. These are the Furies
Megaera, Alecto, and Tisiphone.'

"Another picture shows the 'Worship of the Pope
as God of the World.' This, too, expresses a thought
contained in the 'Wider das Bapstum,' where Luther
says: *We may also with a safe conscience take to
the closet his coat of arms with the Papal keys and
his crown, and use them for the relief of nature/
As a matter of fact in this picture we see on a stool
decorated with the papal insignia a crown or tiara set
upside down on which a man-at-arms is seated in
the action of easing himself ; a second, with his
breeches undone, prepares to do the same, while a
third who has already done so is adjusting his dress."

"The picture with the title The Pope gives a Coun-
cil in Germany' shows the Pope in his tira riding on
a sow and digging his spurs into her sides. The sow
is Germany which is obliged to submit to such igno-
minious treatment from the Papists ; as for the Council
which the Pope is giving to the German people it is
depicted as his own, the Pope's, excrement, which he
holds in his hand pledging the Germans in it, as Luther
says in the passage quoted above. The Pope blesses
the steaming object while the sow noses it with her
snout. Underneath stands the ribald verse:

*Sow, I want to have a ride,
Spur you well on either side.
Did you say 'Concilium'?
Take instead my 'merdrum/

'Here the Pope's feet are kissed,' are the words
over another picture, and, from the Pope who is
seated on his throne with the Bull of Excommunica-
tion in his hand, two men are seen running away,

160 The Facts About Luther

showing him, as KostHn says, 'their tongues and hinder
parts with the utmost indecency.' The inscription be-
low runs:

Tope, don't scare us so with your ban ;
Please don't be so angry a man;
Or else we shall take good care
To show you the * Belvedere/

"Kostlin's description must be supplemented by add-
ing that the two men, whose faces and bared pos-
teriors are turned towards the Pope, are depicted as
emitting wind in his direction in the shape of puffs
of smoke ; from the Pope's Bull fire, flames and stones
are bursting forth."

*'Of the remaining woodcuts one reproduces the
scene which formed the title-page to the first edition
of the "Wider das Bapstum," viz., the gaping jaws of
hell, between the teeth of which is seen the Pope sur-
rounded by a cohort of devils, some of whom are
crowning hirn with the tiara; another portrays the
famous Pope-Ass, said to have been cast up by the
Tiber near Rome; it shows ''what God Himself thinks
of Popery," yet another depicts a pet idea of Luther's
viz., the "regard of the Tapa satanissimus' and his
cardinals," i.e., their being hanged, while their tongues,
which had been torn out by the root, are nailed fast
to the gallows. "How the Pope teaches faith and
theology" ; here the Pope is shown as a robed donkey
sitting upright on a throne and playing the bagpipes
with the help of his hoofs. "How the Pope thanks
the Emperors for their boundless favors" introduces
a scene where Clement IV. with his own hand strikes
off the head of Conradin. "How the Pope, following
Peter's example, honors the King" is the title of a
woodcut where a Pope (probably Alexander HL) sets
his foot on the neck of the Emperor (Frederick Bar-
barossa at Venice). It is not necessary to waste
words on the notorious falsehoods embodied in the
last two pictures. Luther, moreover, further embe!-

Luther on the Church and the Pope 161

lished the accounts he found, for not even the bit-
terest antagonist of the Papacy had ever dared to
accuse Clement IV. of having slain with his own
hand the last of the Staufens. Among the ignorant
masses to whom these pictures and verses were in-
tended to appeal, there were, nevertheless, many who
were prepared to accept such tales as true on the
word of one known as the "man of God," the "Evan-
gelist, the new Elias and the Prophet of Germany.'*
"In the "Historien des ehrwirdigen in Gott seligen
thewren Mannes Gottes," Mathesius says of Luther:
"In the year 1545 he brought out the mighty, earnest
book against the Papacy founded by the devil and
maintained and bolstered up by lying signs ; and, in
the same year, also caused many scathing pictures to
be struck off in which he portrayed for the benefit
of those unable to read, the true nature and monstros-
ity of Antichrist, just as the Spirit of God in the
Apocalypse of St. John depicted the red bride of
Babylon, or as Master John Huss summed up his
teaching in pictures for the people of the Lord Christ
and of Antichrist." "The Holy Ghost is well able
to be severe and cutting," says Mathesius of this
book and the caricatures. "God is a jealous God and
a burning fire, and those who are driven and in-
flamed by His Spirit to wage a ghostly warfare
against the foes of God show themselves worthy foe-
men of those who withstand their Lord and Saviour."
Mathesius, like many others, was full of admiration
for the work." (Grisar. Vol. V., pp., 423, 4. 5.)

Thus the first biographer of Luther shows his taste
for the filthy and disgusting in his appreciation of one
of the vilest and nastiest books that eve> disgraced
the pen of the Ecclesiastes of Wittenburg or of any
other man before or since. Unlike Mathesius, decent
men would consider it a less odious task to wade
through sewage than go through the pages of this
horrible book and its indecent engravings. It is with
the greatest reluctance we refer to such an astound-
ing production, but no account of Luther would be

163 The Facts About Luther

complete without reference to this book, which should
never have been printed, for its filthy language and
indecent illustrations show its author to have been
anything, but a "dear man of God," as his friends love
to call him. DolHnger when speaking of this book
said 'It must have been written under the influence
of intoxicating drink, or of fury of mind bordering on
madness." This celebrated writer had good grounds
for the criticism he makes, for Hospinian, one of the
contemporary reformers, declared Luther to be "abso-
lutely mad" ; and men like Agricola and Catharinus.
who knew the reformer, openly referred to his well
known drinking habits, which at times approached
intemperance, if not actual drunkenness.

In spite of all that Luther said and wrote against
the Papacy, it is well to remember that nineteen hun-
dred years ago and more, Jesus Christ, as foretold by
the Prophets, was pleased to appear in this world
to uplift, enlighten and save mankind. In the Divine
plan of redemption, He, who was full of grace, life
and power, v/as not to remain here below forever
and continue in person the instruction and guidance
of mankind in the way of eternal life. He is no longer
visible on earth, but before He returned whence He
came. He was mindful to organize, found and endow
v/ith perpetuity an hierarchical Church, which He
made the depository of His teachings and which He
empowered to instruct, govern, and act in His name.
This Church was to witness for Him until the con-
summation of the world and her mission was to bring
His doctrine. His worship, and His ministry down
through the ages to all peoples and to all nations. In
this system of Divinely guaranteed authority, which
Christ established, the Master mercifully provided a
safe asylum for the perpetuity, preservation and protec-
tion of His Divine, saving, and ennobling teachings.
Before ascending into heaven Christ was pleased to
appoint a head over His Society and to be Vicariously
represented on earth in the person of the Sovereign
Pontiff, in whom the Church recognizes the most ex-

Luther on the Church and the Pope 163

alted degree of dignity, the full amplitude of juris-
diction, and a power based on no human constitu-
tions however venerable, but emanating from the
Saviour Himself. As the true and legitimate Vicar
of Jesus Christ, the Pope presides over the Universal
Church. He is the Father and Governor in mat-
ters spiritual of all the Faithful, of bishops and of
all prelates, be their station, rank or power what they
may. As the Church is never to perish, the rock on
which it is built is never to perish and that rock is the
Papal Spiritual Sovereignty. As the son of a king
inherits the rights of his father, so each successor
in the lineage of the spiritual children of Peter re-
ceives from Jesus Christ that high sovereignty and
jurisdiction needed to rule and guide the Church for
all time. "To thee I give the keys of the Kingdom
of Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon
earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever
thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in
heaven." Matt. XVI, 19. And the Church, which is
to endure to the end of time, is built upon a rock that
can never perish. "Thou art Peter and upon this rock
I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall
not prevail against it." Matt. XVI, 18.

Thus, the Papal Spiritual Sovereignty possesses
three great distinguishing prerogatives : first. It is the
rock upon which the impregnable Church is built ; the
crested billows may rise in storm and foam but they
break harmless at its feet ; second, The Supreme Pon-
tiff holds the keys ; he makes the decrees to be obeyed
on earth, and ratified in heaven ; third. He feeds with
sound doctrine the lambs and sheep of the Church
of God over which he rules. What the other Apos-
tles received, Peter, the Pontifif of the Apostles, re-
ceived in fullness and supremacy. "Where Peter is,
there is the Church," says St. Ambrose. "Do you
want to know who is the faithful Christian ; ask him
is he in communion with Peter's successor?"

The Pope, then, is the mouth of the Church.
Through him speaks the mystic body of Christ. When,

164 The Facts About Luther

acting as the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church,
he proclaims to the world doctrine or decision on
faith or morals, he is infallible. The infallibility
of St. Peter's Chair ever endures by virtue of Our
Lord's prayer, *T have prayed for thee, that thy faith
fail not and thou being once converted, confirm thy
brethren." Luke XXII, 32.

There is hardly a teaching of the Catholic Church
that has been so grievously misrepresented by those
who profess to be enlightened ministers of the Gos-
pel, and so strangely misapprehended by our separated
brethren, as the infallibility of the Pope. Non-Catho-
lics have been taught and many of them labor under
the impression that Papal Infallibility is a new doc-
trine of the Church, that it imparts to the Pope the
extraordinary gift of inspiration, makes him impec-
cable, confers the right to trespass on civil authority,
and, even to play fast and loose with the Command-
ments of God. These and other equally ridiculous
conceptions are presented in the most plausible and
spicy manner to a gullible public, ever ready to swal-
low without a qualm any statement, no matter how
preposterous, provided it reviles and injures the
Church of the living God. The promoters of the cam-
paign of misrepresentation are jealous of the Pope's
authority, and, like the father of Protestantism, resort
to every means, no matter how unfair, to throw ob-
stacles in the way to keep people from entering the
one sheepfold of the One great Shepherd of Souls.
If, however, such a thing as Church unity could be
effected among themselves and their hundred and more
warring religious organizations, we imagine it would
be no time before Protestantism would attempt to have
a Pope of its own.

All who are anxious to know what Papal Infalli-
bility really means are advised to consult the decrees
of the Vatican Council held on July 18, 1870, over
which Pius IX. presided, surrounded by nearly 700
bishops gathered together from, all over the world, rep-
resenting more than 30 nations and more than 250,-

Luther ON THE Church AND THE Pope 165

000,000 Christians. In that general Council, the twen-
tieth held by the Church, it was solemnly and offi-
cially defined that Catholics are bound to believe that
the Pope is infallible only when he speaks ex cathedra,
that is, from the chair of Peter, i, in discharge of his
office as supreme teacher of the Universal Church; 2,
by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority; 3, de-
fining a doctrine, giving an absolutely final decision
regarding faith or morals ; 4, addressing the Universal
Church; 5, binding her to hold the doctrine he so
defines.

When this doctrine is rightly understood, it means,
to put it briefly, that God will keep the Pope from
teaching error and falsehood,, in faith or morals, when
he acts as head of the Universal Church. The power
of the Pope then is far from being, as so many sup-
pose, arbitrary, absolute, and despotic. It is rightly
limited in many respects and there is nothing in it
to disturb or make any one think that the Pontift is
at liberty to change the Scriptures, to alter the Divine
law or impose doctrines not contained in the original
revelation completed by Christ in the beginning of the
Church. Acting in his private capacity, as a temporal
sovereign or as Bishop of the diocese of Rome, the
Pope, having free-will and being human, can err in
morals or in judgment. He is not impeccable and it
is false to allege that he claims to be. He cannot make
right wrong or v/rong right. His authority like the
Kingdom of Christ, is "not of this world." His juris-
diction belongs to spiritual matters, and is always for
good, for truth, for the cause of Christ, for the welfare
of souls, for the promotion of religion.

It is silly, then, in the highest degree of silliness,
to be alarmed at the teaching of the Catholic Church
on Papal Infallibility, and allege that this doctrine puts
one's intellect and conscience in a state of thraldom
and servitude. The privilege enjoyed by the Pope
cannot be exercised arbitrarily. It is used only after
study and prayer and regard for the welfare of the
Universal Church, and then it must fulfill all the five

166 The Facts About Luther

conditions already enumerated and demanded by the
dogma, as defined by the Vatican Council. Then Papal
decisions in faith and morals are so guided by Divine
Providence, according to Christ's own promise, as
ever to be infallibly true ; and, to the farthest extremi-
ties of the world every faithful Christian admits in
his heart what every loyal son of the Church obeys in
his act. It is not the man, remember, that is infalli-
ble, it is Jesus Christ; and Jesus Christ determines
what that man, who holds the keys, shall teach when
"he feeds the lambs and sheep" of his Master. Far
then from arousing opposition, the doctrine of Papal
Infallibility, which is the keystone in the arch of
Catholic faith, and which has preserved her marvel-
ous unity of belief throughout the world from the
beginning, ought to command the unqualified admira-
tion of every reflecting mind.

The Papacy for well nigh two thousand years has
been in this world where all things disappear, and
never has a century passed in which the Popes have not
conferred innumerable benefits on mankind. They en-
abled their followers to save the Christian religion
when the wild pagans broke through the Roman army
and swept down on Rome, laying waste with fire and
sword to the utter destruction of everything holy,
ennobling, and uplifting. No other organization could
have met these savage peoples save that one organiza-
tion, the Catholic Church. Without the Popes there
would be no Christianity in the world to-day, for
there would be neither authority, nor infallibility, nor
unity. And could there be law without authority, reve-
lation without certainty, in the midst of a society
without unity? Every organization that accomplishes
anything must have a dominant head, and even the
United States, as great as she is to-day, would not
last three months without a supreme ruler. Some
complain that infallibility fetters the human mind, but
they should remember that this infallibility regards
subjects which the human mind unaided would never
have discovered, or if discovered, could never without

Luther on the Church and the Pope 16'<'

infallibility, have trusted and reposed upon. Without
infallibility what thoughtful man could honestly de-
clare his unhesitating and lasting conviction in an
accurately worded profession of faith, declaring his
hopes for the future and the means appointed by God
whereby he may secure that future?

But the world is inconsistent. It is ever wearying
of those who would serve it. It mistrusts its truest
friends. It persecutes those who would help it. Jeru-
salem crucified Jesus Christ. The rulers imprisoned
St. Peter in the midst of that city where his shadow
had healed the sick and his words strengthened
the withered limbs. All his successors for the first
three hundred years sealed their profession of the
faith with their own blood. Thenceforward every
Pope desired to pursue his heavenly mission in peace
and quiet, but enemies of the Church arose to strike
at the chief shepherd in the hope of involving the
whole flock. The boldest and most daring of these
was Martin Luther, who aimed to place himself on an
equality with the Pope and to impose his personal
views for the acceptance of mankind. During a long
period of his life, according to his own testimony given
in the Preface to his Works, he was so besotted with
the Papacy that "he would have killed or helped to
kill any one who rejected one iota of the Pope's
teaching." But ambition and rebellious thoughts, after
some time, agitated his mind, and growing restless,
discontented, and dissatisfied in all his earlier faith
taught him to venerate, he yielded to the temptation
"to make," as he says in a letter to the Augustinians
of Wittenburg, "a stand alone against the Pope and
hold him forth as Antichrist." Well might he write
to the priest Leitzken : "Pray for me, for I grow more
miserable every day. I am constantly drawing nearer
to hell." The pleadings of grace in his soul were
hushed and in a spirit of self-confidence never mani-
fested by any one before his day, he finally brought
himself as Alzog says, "to indulge the pleasing delu-
sion that he himself was John the Evangelist, ban-

168 The Facts About Luther

ished by Domitian to the island of Patmos : a second
Paul or Isaias." Pride and ''the prosperity of fools"
led him on to destruction, and he who once wrote
to Pope Leo X., *'I acknowledge your voice as that
of Christ who presides and speaks in you," turned
in rankest hypocrisy and supreme effrontery to make
out "that the Sovereign Pontiff was not the chief head
of all Christendom," that "the time had come to cease
to be the puppets of the Roman Pontiff," and that
**the Papacy should be destroyed."

Leo X., like all his predecessors, who ever showed
a paternal love and an affectionate compassion for the
wayward, labored to bring Luther to a realization of
his sad condition, but to no purpose. He would no
longer acknowledge the voice of the shepherd of
the whole flock "as that of Christ" and this ingrate
and lawless one, reckless in calumny, groundless in
assertion, with the cursing and bitterness and deceit
that filled his m.outh, went throughout the land "deter-
mined," as he said, "to crush the Papacy" and bury
it "under the weight of his thunders and lightnings."
He was the first in all Christendom to raise the cry
"No Popery." Why? Because he wanted no author-
ity in religion save his own.

In the spirit of an apostate, he was now prepared
to go to any lengths to vent his irrational hatred of
the Holy See, the impregnable citadel of the com-
munion of the true children of God. For nearly
twenty years, he occupied himself in pouring forth a
whole series of denunciations and insults against di-
vine, ecclesiastical authority. Plis virulence and rage
against the Holy See and its respected representative
was so bitter and intense that "he could not" as we
read in Hazlitt's Michelet, pp. 229-230, "pray without
intermingling maledictions with his orisons. "If," he
says, "I exclaim : Hallowed be Thy Name, I am, as it
were constrained to add : Cursed be the name of
Papists and of those who blaspheme against Thee. If I
say : Thy Kingdom Come, I must put in : Cursed be
the Papacy, and all the other kingdoms which are

Luther on the Church and the Pope 169

opposed to Thine. If I pray : Thy will be done, I
rejoin: Cursed be the Papacy and may their designs
be overthrown who oppose Thy commands." The in-
tensity of his bitterness towards the Head of the
Church was especially manifested on leaving the Coun-
cil of Schmalkalden, when he made the sign of the
cross over the assembled crowds and cried out: "May
the Lord fill you with hatred of the Pope."

Carried away by his wild aspirations for dominance
he was convinced that he was to outlast the Papacy.
In his insanity, he forgot, however, that the chair of
Peter was like the Ark of the Covenant. No Uzzah
ever touched it irreverently and remained unscathed.
The keen-sighted Voltaire, another apostate, very aptly
expressed this historic truth in the famous saying:
*TIe who eats Pope, dies of it." The Cynic of Ferney
read in the world's annals a truth to which Luther
remained blind. "He remained blind to it," as Ander-
don says, "because the evil passions to which he sur-
rendered himself, his jealousy, his arrogance, and
obstinate wrong-headedness and lust of dominion, and
sensual downward tendencies, had caused the light
that was in him to become darkness."

The keynote of his whole movement of Reforma-
tion is sounded in the Latin line he wrote on a piece
of plaster at a banquet, "where the Princes enter-
tained him magnificently and regaled him with the
finest Rhenish wine," and where, as Seckendorf tells,
"he drank like a true German" :

'Testis eram vivus, moriens tua mors ero Papa."
"Living I was your pest; dying, O Pope, I shall
be your death."

The merry guests, delighted with his humor, sat
down, and Luther "continued to vent his wit in sar-
casms against his natural enemies, the pope, the em-
peror, the monks, and also the devil, whom he did
not forget, to the delight of the frivolous and bibulous
company." As the boisterous and irreverent crowd
rose from the table, a report of the death of Paul HI.
reached them. Luther, delighted at the news, cried

170 The Facts About Luther

out, exultingly, 'This is the fourth Pope I have buried:
I shall bury many more of them." He that dwelleth
in heaven, however, laughed at the prediction. Luther
was taken suddenly ill and in spite of all the atten-
tion of his assembled guests in a few hours he was
called to the judgment seat of God to render an ac-
count of his long and bitter opposition to the Church
and its legitimate representative. "He ate Pope and
died of it.''

Meanwhile, the Papacy, of which Luther was to
be the death and to see the end, what became of it?
Let Lord Macaulay give answer. ''The Papacy," he
says, "remains : not in decay, not a mere antique, but
full of life and youthful vigor. The Catholic Church
is still sending forth to the farthest ends of the world
missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent
with Augustine: and still confronting hostile kings in
the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The
number of her children is greater than in any former
age. The acquisitions in the new world have more
than compensated her for what she has lost in the
old. Her spiritual ascendency extends over the vast
countries which lie between the plains of Missouri and
Cape Horn ; countries which a century hence, may not
improbably contain a population as large as that which
now inhabits Europe. Nor do we see any signs which
indicate that the term of her long duration is approach-
ing. She saw the commencement of all the govern-
ments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that
now exist in the world ; and we feel no assurance that
she is not destined to see the end of them all." (Macau-
lay, "Essay on Ranke's History of the Popes.")

Such is the estimate of a man whose prejudices were
all against the Church of God. His common sense
and acquaintance with facts, however, compelled him
to laud her services and predict her perpetuity. Since
his day hundreds upon hundreds, whose views of his-
tory were often distorted by prejudice, have admitted
in all fairness that popular ignorance, superficial
knowledge and malicious slander have in many in-

Luther on the Church and the Pope lYl

stances misrepresented the teachings of the Catholic
Church, and contemplating her marvelous career, her
triumphs over wars, empires and kingdoms arrayed
against her and her firm, consistent and persevering
stand for law and order, have declared that she is the
most splendid institution the world has ever seen. They
came to recognize that never has a century passed
without the Popes conferring innumerable benefits on
mankind, that they have literally been the civilizers
and the evangelizers of the world, that during many
centuries they denounced slavery and finally suppressed
it, that they guarded the sanctity of marriage, en-
couraged learning and the arts, and that they alone
have been able to make a periodical and lengthened
peace between contending nations in Europe. These
disinterested witnesses could not in fairness withhold
the meed of praise so justly due the Papacy for its
eminent and distinguished services to mankind. In-
deed, mercy, justice and charity have ever flourished
according to the extent of the Papal influence.

A belief in the Lord and His teaching and respect
for His representative on earth, has ever been the real
magnet that draws and holds the splendid loyalty of
the Catholic people. Catholics know that their Church
is the true Church of Christ, that it is international
in character, that its comforting worship is the same
for all throughout the universe, and that its head
stands as an authority Divinely guaranteed in all mat-
ters that pertain to faith and morals. They realize
that Divine truth which was given for the universal
benefit of mankind, could not be left without protec-
tion and was never intended to be a mere plaything
in the hands of fallible men. They know that their
religion antedates all man-made forms of belief and
they can tell when, where, and by whom all the vari-
ous religious denominations originated. They know
that outside of God's own guarantee and everlasting
endowment truth cannot be found, that other Chris-
tian churches cannot consistently claim succession from
Christ Himself, and, therefore, their teaching is not

172 The Facts About Luther

the Christ-founded or guaranteed creed, and their
religion, cannot be as good, as true, as the religion of
the Church founded by Jesus Christ Himself. With
Catholics one religion is not as good as another. Truth
cannot possibly admit error, and since perfect truth
prevails with God alone, then in God's own Church
only can the perfect truth be found. One religion
would be as good as another if all religions were es-
tablished by men. The Catholic religion was estab-
lished by Christ Himself and as He was God and
perfection itself, it is impossible to improve on His
word or work. With Catholics the one religion is that
of the Church founded by Christ, the Holy Catholic
Apostolic Church, of which Peter, the Fisherman, was
the first Bishop at Rome. The line of his successors
is unbroken down to the present ruler of the Holy
See. Thus they are aware of the certainty of their
position, and they are confident that as their Church
came by the blood and sacrifice of millions of martyrs,
and remained ever since to execute her heavenly mis-
sion, she will endure to the end despite the protest and
opposition of the malicious who vilify and misrepresent
her. The Catholic Church has stood adamant for
nearly two thousand years and no efforts of a lot of
spiritual degenerates like Luther, Calvin, Zwingle and
company, will ever prevail against her.

This certainty of belief, as well as the solace and
peace found in the Catholic Church under the head-
ship of Peter's successors, was never offered by
Luther to his followers in revolt or given by any of
the various denominations that imitated their master
in his rebellious course. The principle on which Luther
started his new religion destroyed entirely in its very
inception the possibility of any certainty of Christian
creed and faith. The right of every individual to in-
terpret the Scripture and judge for himself in all
matters of religion was ruinous and destined to fail-
ure. *Tn theory, private judgment," as Preston says,
"destroys both the creed and the possibility of faith.
There can be no creed where each individual is the

Luther on the Church and the Pope 173

maker of his own faith. There can be no unity of
faith where all matters of belief are referred to the
individual judgment. One man is as good as an-
other in finding out his faith and in interpretating
Scripture, or tradition, or history; and more than
that, this private judgment is not simply his privilege
but it is his duty. All are bound, even the ignorant
and unlettered, to decide for themselves when there
is no Divine authority and Divine witness, and thus
you have as many creeds as there are individuals."

"Then, the principle of private judgment destroys
the possibility of faith ; for where there is no external
authority there can be no exercise of faith, for, be it
remembered, faith is the belief in that which God
delivers to man. Now if God does not speak to the
individual, he cannot exercise faith ; and surely, no
one is vain enough to say that his own judgment is
to him a Divine testimony. What each individual can
prove on his own judgment is his own opinion and
his individual conception stands for what it is worth.
But, as for the voice of God, men must hear it from
an external and an infallible authority before they
can believe, for to believe is not to entertain an opin-
ion, nor to know some truth by induction or logic,
nor to search it out by science, but it is to believe it
and receive it because God declares it to be so, and
because, as the Soverei.s^n Truth, He neither can de-
ceive nor be deceived. On the private judgment theory
of Luther there is no possibility of an external
testimony."

Friedrich Paulsen, a non-Catholic writer, says : "The
principle of 1521, viz., to allow no authority on earth
to dictate the terms of faith, is anarchical ; with it no
Church can exist. . . .The starting-point and the justi-
fication of the whole Reformation consisted in the
complete rejection of all human authority in matters
of faith. . . .If, however, a Church is to exist, then the
individual must subordinate himself and his belief to
the body as a whole. To do this is his duty, for re-
ligion can only exist in a body, i.e., in a Church."

l'J'4 The Facts About Luther

"Revolution is the term by which the Reformation
should be described. . .Luther's work was no Reforma-
tion, no 're-forming' of the existing Church by means
of her own institutions, but the destruction of the old
shape, in fact, the fundamental negation of any Church
at all. He refused to admit any earthly authority in
matters of faith, and regarding morals his position
was practically the same; he left the matter entirely
to the individual conscience. . . .Never has the pos-
sibility of the existence of any ecclesiastical authority
whatsoever been more rudely denied."

Wherever Luther's cardinal principle of private judg-
ment has been carried out in practice it has invariably
resulted in the destruction of the unity of the Chris-
tian faith and even of faith itself. Look at the con-
dition of Christendom since this man first advocated
the right of every individual to judge for himiself in
matters of religion. At the period of his revolt there
was, with the exception of the Greek schism, only one
faith in which all who called themselves Christians
united. Now, if you look out beyond the pale of the
Catholic Church, where can you find a semblance of
unity, even in matters that might be called funda-
mental? And who among fallible men has the right
to declare which are fundamental and which are not
fundamental articles? Surely on every side are the
variations of Protestantism. Its adherents, like its
formulator, have contradicted themselves over and
over again ; pulpit stands against pulpit, and individual
against individual, and sect against sect, and even in
the same denomination there is not unity of faith.
There is not, we believe, a single Protestant church
in the whole world where the members of one single
congregation are solidly united together in the unity
of one certain faith. So, if facts count for anything,
they proclaim the utter confusion which has resulted
from Luther's effort to destroy the authority of the
Church and the headship of the Pope. Even the Bible,
called ''the religion of Protestants," but which must
be believed either on the authority of the Catholic

Luther on the Church and the Pope 176

Church or on no authority at all, has suffered at their
hands ; it has been torn into pieces ; its supernatural
character has been interpreted away and some or all
of it has been filched of inspiration. Some Books are
received and some are not received. In many churches
large portions of the Sacred Record are treated as the
father of the Reformation gave example in his day.

The great trouble with the Protestant belief all
along has been its elasticity. In our day we count its
denominations by the hundreds. On almost every
street corner, we face a church of a different per-
suasion, such as Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian,
Methodist, Universalist, Latter Day Saints, etc., etc.
The Protestant people are at constant variance with
one another. They may for a time hold to the tenets
and dogmas of the parent body from which they
spring, but ever and anon, dissensions arise, and after
a time the factions separate and announce a doctrine of
their own and acknowledge no allegiance to any other
sect or creed. If you doubt this, just investigate the
discipline and the authority of any of the Protestant
beliefs and you will at once discover the truth of the
statement. And, yet, Protestants wonder at the steady
and alarmving decrease in their ranks and the conse-
quent tendency of the day to abandon all religious
profession. The reason is clear. They lack the great
essential, unity of faith ; they lack the dominant author-
ity to satisfy their follov/ers in the belief of the Di-
vinity of Jesus Christ and the true Church, and, as a
result, their belief ceases to appeal to them and they
withdraw from active church participation.

It is astonishing how common it is nowadays to
meet people, who sa}^ they were brought up Luth-
erans, Baptists, Methodists, or Presbyterians, but de-
clare they no longer have any definite belief. They
were taught that religion is a purely personal matter
which each individual is competent to decide for him-
self, and in consequence they grow careless towards
religious questions and, losing the sense of a posi-
tive obligation to God to seek the truth as it is in

176 The Facts About Luther

Christ Jesus and His Church, they turn away from
their original creeds to join the ranks of the indif-
ferent, the free-thinking, and the unbeHeving. AH
Protestant denominations ahke have been hit by these
desertions. In this country alone, we face the appal-
ling fact that out of nearly a hundred million people,
there are fully sixty million who profess no religion
whatever. This condition is sad beyond expression
and should be the deep concern of every citizen having
a love of his fellow-man and the stability of the Con-
stitution at heart, for so surely as Christianity lessens
in the estimation of our countrymen, just so surely
will the spirit of self-sacrifice on which it is founded
disappear and lawlessness and anarchy reign. It should
be remembered that Christianity does infinitely more
than any other agency to preserve law and order and
to bring contentment into the lives of the people.

Luther separated Christianity from the old and solid
foundations upon which it rested and shutting it up
within the covers of the Bible he changed the Chris-
tian church into a veritable "Pandemonium where all
dreams, all half truths, and all errors, disported them-
selves at ease and celebrated their Sabbath." As he
rejected with indignation all historical and traditional
data in matters of faith and thereby kicked away the
foundations of all fixed, solid and enlightened belief,
there was nothing left for his followers but deism,
naturalism, indifferentisrn or contempt of all revealed
religion. He ventured to match his intellect against
the Infinite Intellect and the result was confusion and
desolation. Church statistics point to the fact that
his revolutionary work has been all along and is now,
with its multitudinous divisions of opinions and doc-
trines, a lamentable failure.

When Charles V. saw and heard Luther at the
Diet of Worms, he said, "That man would never make
me a Protestant." He was right and thousands upon
thousands had cause enough to reach a similar con-
clusion. The Icrv^rs of novelty, however, the scoflFers,
the indifferent and a large number of the ruling sover-

Luther on the Church and the Pope 177

eigns who had their axes to grind, were not as keen
in their judgment of the heresiarch as the loyal and
faithful children of Holy Church and they easily be-
came victims of the monster of impertinence, folly,
and pride. The weak, dissolute, and rebellious of the
day were ready to embark on the ways of innovation.
For years the ranks of those who were captivated by
Luther's absurdities and held in intellectual slavery by
his abominable errors increased to an alarming extent
and made giant headway, to the detriment of the true
faith throughout the land. God, however, was with
His Church and would not suffer the rebellious to
triumph.

Towards the year 1555, there came an amazing
change, brought about by a great revival of religious
life within the Church. Rapidly as Protestantism had
spread in the beginning, its repulse was equally swift.
While the apostate friar was raving against Rome
over his beer in the Black Eagle Tavern, where he
spent most of his evenings amid his dissolute dis-
ciples, and slanderously charging **the Pope and his
crew," as he sarcastically designated them, ''with
hatred and dread of the very word, Reformation,"
the Council of Trent had met to restore to the purity
and grave moral character of the ancient discipline
and Church government whatever in the lives of clergy
and people was contrary to that spirit and discipline;
and also to renew and restate with great precision and
detail the doctrines which came down from the Apos-
tles in order to oppose them to the errors and the in-
novations of the period. Thus Rome showed to the
world that reformation is the very life of the Church.
The voice of her chief Pastor now resounds through-
out the Christian world and the stray sheep wearied,
emaciated unto spiritual death, deceived by the false
promises of liberty and emancipation which the hire-
ling could not fulfill, return in humility and penitence
to be nourished and fed as of old in the rich pasture
of sound doctrine and of moral rectitude provided
in the one sheep fold of the One great Shepherd of

178 The Facts About Luther

Souls. Luther's pre-eminence as the leader of a
party of malcontents waned. Time showed him to
be a deceiver, and the thoughtful who studied his
revolutionary purpose, analyzed his wicked pronounce-
ments and witnessed his scandalous behavior, con-
cluded they were neither economically, socially nor
spiritually as well off as before the Lutheran brand
of Reformation was proclaimed, and went back in
masses to the faith which in an evil moment they had
abandoned. In the short interval of a decade, from
1555 to 1565, the Lutheran cause lost enormously, and
ever since, as history and experience attest, it has
gradually gone the way of all things human.

The revival of Catholicity at this period is one of
the marvels of history and the position it gained in
those years has never since been lost. The Church,
ever true to her sublime mission, redoubled her efforts
in behalf of souls. Imbued with renewed vigor,
she went out everywhere to remind the unfaithful of
the misery and desolation of apostasy from God and
the Christian faith, with the result that thousands
upon thousands hearkened to her appeals and sub-
mitted to her Divine authority and saving influence.
The conversion movement advanced wdth giant strides.
Coming down to our own day, it is growing stead-
ily as men realize more and more how their fore-
fathers were robbed of the faith by Luther, and
apprehend that there is no logical middle ground be-
tween the Catholic faith and the purely agnostic phil-
osophy of which Protestantism is the parent. In Ger-
many conversions are numerous and the population, by
virtue of a superior birth-rate, is steadily shifting
towards a larger Catholic parentage, so much so that
even non-Catholic writers admit that in less than a
century the Fatherland will have a preponderance of
Catholics. In England, Scotland, and Wales conver-
sions average eight thousand a year. In the United
States they run close to forty thousand a year. The
movements now going on in the Church of England,
in the Episcopal Church of America, and in other

Luther ON THE Church AND THE Pope 179

denominations clamoring for unity will inevitably lead
many more into the ranks of the one, true Church
established by Jesus Christ.

In the past the Catholic Church has achieved vic-
tories in the face of the world's greatest opposition
and she will continue to achieve victories until the
whole Christian world will be Catholic. Her mission
is to realize the prayer of her Founder that there shall
be One Faith, One Fold, One Shepherd. She desires
all who as yet do not believe in Christ to become Chris-
tians and enter into communion with the one Church
which Christ established, in order to glorify God by
the universal acceptance of the institution founded by
His Divine Son and to convert, sanctify, and save
souls. Her aim is to prepare men for Heaven, to
bring them to a knowledge of God, the love and serv-
ice of Christ and the practice of virtue, to administer
to them grace-giving sacraments and to offer up the
adorable sacrifice of the Mass for their benefit. Out-
side the sphere of faith, morals and discipline, she
has no desire and makes no claims to enter, no matter
what stories her enemies may circulate to her detri-
ment. She knows her business too well to dabble in
things that lie outside of the object for which she
was established, and hence in all matters which are
purely temporal, purely political, purely secular, she
neither claims nor exercises jurisdiction. Her author-
ity relates to religion only, and hence all who go about
telling the people that the object of the Church in
her desire to advance Catholicity is to enrich her
treasur}^ and to see her head, the Pope, king or emperor
or supreme civil potentate of the universe, are only
helping the devil to deceive the ignorant, foment strife,
and perpetuate the grossest of calumnies. These
maligners of the Church and the Papacy who fatten on
deception are like their father Beelzebub, ''liars and
the truth is not in them."

The bigoted disturbers in our midst may decry the
fact that every Catholic the world over recognizes
the Pope as the supreme head and final judge of mat-

180 The Facts About Luther

ters religious, but they should understand that this
loyalty is based on the knowledge that the Catholic
Church is the true church of Christ and the only one
that makes the word "Catholic" mean what it is
intended to mean. By close observation, they will
discover that the Pope's power and authority are
modest indeed, w^hen contrasted with that of many
of the sovereigns of the day who are not satisfied
with the mere temporal rule of their respective coun-
tries, but claim also supreme spiritual dominion over
their subjects. Is it not a fact that the King of
England is the recognized head of the Church in
that land and that this Church is the fountain head
of the American denomination? Is it not a fact
that the Czar of Russia is the head of the Russian
Orthodox Church and that Russians acknowledge
him as supreme in matters spiritual? Is it not a
fact that the Emperor of Germany is the head of the
Prussian Lutheran Church and that all Lutherans in
Prussia recognize the Kaiser as their spiritual chief?
What have the bigots to say to this? Can they dis-
prove these facts that are patent to every one who
runs ? Do they ever allude to these conditions in their
harangues against the Catholic Church and her legiti-
mate representative? Do they ever charge the Eng-
lishman, the Russian, or the Prussian in America with
disloyalty to the Stars and Stripes because in the pro-
fession of their respective creeds they manifest alle-
giance in spiritual matters to foreign potentates? Do
they ever tell their deluded audiences that Luther and
his followers were the framers of the principle that
created the State Church? Do they ever tell that
the so-called reformers held that kings rule by divine
right, that they were autocrats, and therefore, could
do as they willed in things spiritual as in things
temporal? Do they ever tell how Luther flattered the
princes till they became the aides of his religious
movement? Do they ever tell that Luther was a con-
summate politician willing to sacrifice any principle
for political expediency? Do they ever tell, when he

Luther on the Church and the Pope 181

foresaw that his innovations were sure to lead to civil
war, how he openly and boldly proclaimed the right
and duty of armed resistance in the cause of his new
doctrines? Do they ever tell that he was the very one
to urge the secular power to repress Catholicity as a re-
bellion, that he labored to excite the populace to resort
to arms to spread his reformed doctrines and impose
them by force on an unwilling community? Do they
ever tell how the secular supremacy, advocated by the
leaders of the reform movement, became unlimited in
its claims and more arrogant in its assumptions than
the Byzantine despotism of the Lower Empire?

To these burning questions the bigots give no an-
swer, for the reason that they know as little about
these matters as they do about the Church and her
respected head, whom they imagine they are especially
called on, like their Master Luther, to denounce, oppose
and persecute. A course of solid reading might help
them to dispel their malice and correct their igno-
rance. Investigation will show them one thing at least —
that all who live in glass houses should be mindful
not to throw stones at their neighbors. In the mean-
time, we advise the bigots who claim a monopoly of
patriotism to possess their souls in peace and to rest
assured that the Catholic Church will never adopt, but
always will oppose the principle which Luther fathered
and gave to his religion, namely, the subservience of
the Church to State domination.

Of one thing we may all be certain, that come
what will, the Catholic religion, which is not and does
not aspire to become a state religion, shall remain for
all time in all her truthfulness, beauty and strength,
because she is the one universal religion established
by God to endure to the consummation of the world;
and that, moreover, when the chronicles of this crea-
tion close, in its last page shall be recorded the per-
petuity and endurance of the Roman Pontiff. Do
not forget that amidst the terrors of the world's clos-
ing scenes, one voice, ever gentle, constant, pctient,
hopeful, shall travel around the earth, bringing peace

182 The Facts About Luther

to every Christian heart; it will be the voice of the
last Pope for the last time blessing the world. Then
and then only will the Church militant cease her exist-
ence on earth and pass to the glory of the Church
triumphant in Heaven.

CHAPTER VI.

Luther and the Bible.

DURING the last three hundred years and more it
has been widely and persistently proclaimed that
Luther was the discoverer, the first translator and the
only correct interpreter of the Bible. Ever since the
so-called reformer threw off the authority of the one
true Church of Christ and set himself up in its place,
the story went the rounds, that when he was appointed
librarian of his convent he "discovered among the dan-
gerous and prohibited books" a copy of the Sacred
Scriptures, carried it off to his cell, devoured it and
was ''converted." The story was first put into cir-
culation by Mathesius, Luther's pupil and a boarder in
his house. It fascinated the simple, and many, ig-
norant of the facts, came to believe that Luther ex-
humed and dragged into the light of day the Holy
Book that had lain for many dark ages in the dungeons
and lumber rooms of Popery. Had Luther really
accomplished such a notable feat, we should have just
reason to sound his praises and offer him the expres-
sion of our deepest gratitude. We are constrained,
however disappointing it may be to his admirers, to
declare in the interests of truth that the tale bearing
on Luther and his discovery of the Bible has no
foundation in historic fact and is entirely unworthy
of credence. It is a fabrication pure and simple. It
was invented to throw dust into the eyes of the illit-
erate and to fan the flames of senseless bigotry. When-
ever and wherever it is repeated, it has only one
object in view, viz., to mislead the unwary into the
belief that Rome hated the Bible, that she did her best
to destroy it and that she concealed it from her people
lest it should enlighten their supposed blindness.

Of all the accusations laid at the door of the Church
this one must appear to any person who does not
wilfully shut his eyes to facts as the most ludicrous,

184 The Facts About Luther

and the truth is, it is ridiculed and put down by the
learned as too silly to deny. It has been refuted and
repudiated hundreds of times, and yet so venomous or
ignorant are the propagators of error that they con-
tinue with brazen effrontery to keep it in continual
circulation. The story will not down. It is difficult
to convince the ignorant of its preposterous falsity
and it continues to be repeated in hostile circles for
the vile purpose of catering to the low susceptibilities
of those who never question the veracity of the false
teacher. Although the story continues to be told, the
truth is that the Church never hated the Bible, never
persecuted it, never tried to blot it out of existence
and never kept it from her people. The contrary is
the fact. She has been the parent, the author and
maker under God of the Bible; she has always been
the only effective and consistent preserver of the
Bible; she guarded it through the ages from error and
destruction ; she has ever held it in highest veneration
and esteem, and has ever grounded her doctrines upon
it; she alone has the right to call it her book and she
alone possesses the Bible in all its fulness and
integrity.

This proud claim is not an idle boast. It is a fact
which cannot be controverted. Serious and impartial
students of the question are all in agreement on this
point, and so true is this that no scholar of repute
would to-day dare risk his reputation by giving to the
public the silly and groundless stories circulated con-
cerning the Church in her relation to the Bible and
the inferences the unwary draw therefrom. To prove
that Luther and his followers had little or no rever-
ence for the Bible, that they changed and falsified it,
that they tampered with it, and deliberately mistrans-
lated numerous passages to buttress the new religion
of Protestantism, is a much easier task than to show
that the Catholic Church was ever afraid of the Bible,
that she ever tried to keep the Scriptures away from
the people and that there ever was a time in her history
when she was not most anxious to copy, print and put

Luther and the Bible 185

editions of the Holy Book in the hands of the faithful.

That Luther did not discover and was not the first
to give the Bible to the people in the latter's own
language is easily proved.

Fr. Lucian Johnston, in an able review of Grisar's
Work, says: "Luther as well as every other man of
education of his day was accustomed to the Scrip-
tures from his youth. Like thousands of others in
any other schools, he was a regularly appointed pro-
fessor of Scripture. It was precisely this position as
teacher of Scripture in his monastery that gave the
outlet to his peculiar views. Had the Bible been as
unknown as the popular biography supposes, Luther
might not have developed as he did along Scriptural
lines. Here again Luther's maturer memory played
him tricks. He fell back for excuses upon the sup-
posed lack of Scriptures just as he did upon the pres-
ence of abuses, when, as a matter of fact, there is no
evidence from his own earher w^orks to prove that
these things exercised any material effect upon his
early mental development."

''Luther's studies," according to McGiffert, a non-
Catholic writer, in his biography of the Reformer
published in 1912, "embraced the writings of the
Church Fathers and particularly the Bible, to which
he was becoming more and more attached. It was in
his twentieth year, he tells us, that he first saw a
complete copy of the Scriptures in the university
library of Erfurt. He had hitherto supposed they
embraced only the lessons read in the pubHc services
and was delighted to find much that was quite unfa-
miliar to him. His ignorance, it may be remarked,
though not exceptional, was his own fault. The
notion that Bible reading was frowned upon by the
ecclesiastical authorities of the age is quite unfounded."
The Scriptures "were read regularly in church and
their study was no more prohibited to university stu-
dents of that day than of this."

Professor Vedder of Crozer Theological Seminary,
a non-Catholic author, in his work on the Reforma-

186 The Facts About Luther

tion published in 1914, says: "The most recent writ-
ers are inclined to discredit the story of his (Luther's)
finding the Bible — as inherently incredible. They
point out the facts regarding the circulation of the
Bible, both Latin and vernacular, and tell us that
Luther must have taken great pains to keep himself
in a state of ignorance, if he knew no more about the
Bible than this anecdote implies." . . . ''The real diffi-
culty is not so much with the incident as with the
inferences that have been drawn from it. Protestant
writers have often seized on the occurrence as proof
of the darkness of the times, of the indifference of
the Church to the instruction of the people in the
Scriptures and have by comparison exalted the work
of the reformers in their translation and circulation
of the Scriptures. What the incident actually proves
i^ merely Luther's own personal ignorance. If he
did not know that the passages which he had heard
in church did not constitute the whole Bible, there
were nevertheless in Germany many who did know
this." (Vedder, pp. 5, 6.)

The notion that people before the Reformation did
not possess the Scriptures and that Luther was the
first to translate them into the common language of
the country, is not only a mistake, but a stupid blun-
der. Every layman who has read history knows that
the Church in the olden days translated the Scriptures
from the Hebrew and Greek into Latin for the benefit
of her children. Latin was not then a dead language
and an unknown tongue. It was a common language
among the educated and was known, spoken and
written almost universally in Europe. In those days
reading was a sign of a certain degree of scholarship
and erudition and it would have been hard to have
found any man capable of reading, who was not also
capable of understanding Latin. The groundwork
of all school learning was the knowledge of the
Latin language. Dr. Peter Bayne, a Protestant, says
in the Literary World, Oct., 1894 : "Latin was then the
language of all men of culture and to an extent prob-

Luther and the Bible 187

ably far beyond what we at present realize, the com-
mon language of Europe : in those days tens of thou-
sands of lads, many of them poor, studied at the uni-
versities and learned to talk Latin. The records of
the proceedings in the courts of law were in those
days in Latin and the wills of dying persons were
commonly in the same tongue. As Latin was the pre-
vailing language of the time, most people who knew
it would certainly prefer to use the authorized Vulgate
to any vernacular version."

The Rev. Charles Buck, a virulent Protestant, says:
"Both old and new Testaments were translated into
Latin by the primitive Christians : and while the Roman
Empire subsisted in Europe, the reading of the Scrip-
tures in the Latin tongue, which was the universal
language of that Empire, prevailed everywhere."
(''Bible" in Theological Dictionary, by Rev. Charles
Buck.)

"No book," says The Cambridge Modern History,
P- 639, "was more frequently republished than the
Latin Vulgate, of which ninety-eight distinct and full
editions appeared prior to 1500, besides twelve others
which contained the Glossa Ordinaria or the Postils
of Lyranus. From 1475, when the first Venetian issue
is dated, twenty-two complete impressions have been
found in the city of St. Mark alone. Half a dozen
folio editions came forth before a single Latin classic
had been printed. This Latin text, constantly pro-
duced or translated, was accessible to all scholars : it
did not undergo a critical recension." In fact the Bible
in its Latin dress, observes Mons. Vaughan, "was just
as accessible to the people as it would have been if it
had been in English. Neither more nor less. Lay
this fact to heart, namely : Those who could read Latin
could read the Bible and those who could not read
Latin could not read anything."

Whilst the Vulgate was in general use we know that
translations into the vernacular of the various peoples
were also made and read. In Germany, not to men-
tion Italy, France, Spain, Denmark, Holland, Norway,

188 The Facts About Luther

Poland, Bavaria, Hungary and other countries, before
the days of printing, we know that Raban Maur, born
in Mantz in jy^, translated the Old and New Testa-
ment into the Teutonic or old German tongue. Some
time later, Valafrid Strabon made a new translation
of the whole Bible. Huges of Fleury also translated
the Scriptures into German and the monk Ottfried of
Wissemburg rendered it into verse. In Germany
prior to the issue of Luther's New Testament in 1522,
no authority enumerates fewer than fourteen editions
in High German and three in Low German. ''Those
in High German," says Vedder, "are apparently re-
prints of a single MS. version, of which two copies
are still preserved, one in a monastery of Tepl,
Bohemia, the other in the Hbrary of the University at
Freiburg in the Breisgau. The former, known as the
Codex Teplensis, has recently been printed and is
accessible to all scholars." The library of the Paulist
Fathers of New York City contains, at present, a copy
of the ninth edition of a German Bible profusely illus-
trated with colored wood engravings and printed by
A. Coburger at Nuremberg in 1483, the very year in
which Luther was born. In the year 1892 the Protes-
tant historian Wilhelm Walther published in Bruns-
wick a book under the title, "The German Transla-
tion of the Bible in the Middle Ages," in which he
proves that previous to the year 1521, before Luther
ever thought of translating the Bible into the German
language, there existed seventeen editions of the whole
Bible in German, besides an almost countless number
of German versions of the New Testament, the
Psalms, and other parts of the Bible. He gives the
following list of pre-Lutheran editions of the whole
Bible in German, viz : Edition Mentel, Strassburg,
A. D. 1466; edit. Eggenstein, Strassburg, 1470; edit.
Pflanzmann, Augsburg, 1473 ; edit. Zainer, Augsburg,
1473 5 ^^it. Sorg, Augsburg, 1480 ; two editions of
Koeln (Cologne) by Quentel, 1480; edit. Koburger,
Nuernberg, 1483 ; edit. Grueninger, Strassburg, 1485 ;
edit. Schoensperger, Augsburg, 1487; edit. Schoen-

Luther and the Bible 189

sperger, Augsburg, 1490; edit. Arndes, Luebeck, 1494;
edit. H. Otmar, Augsburg, 1507; the Swiss Bible,
Basel, about 1474; edit. Zainer, Augsburg, 1477; and
edit. S. Otmar, Augsburg, 15 '3.

The Protestant historian, Ludwig Hain, enumerates
in his work, ''Repertorium Bibliographicum," Stutt-
gart, 1826, ninety-eight editions of the whole Bible in
Latin, which appeared in print before the year 1501.

Sixty copies of as many different editions of Latin
and vernacular Bibles, all printed before 1503, were
to be seen at the Caxton Exhibition in London, 1877;
and seeing is believing. The Church Times, a Protes-
tant journal, under date of July 26, 1878, writing of
the list of Bibles in the catalogue of the Caxton Cele-
bration, 1877, published by H. Stevens, says: "This
Catalogue will be very useful for one thing at any
rate, as disproving the popular lie about Luther finding
the Bible for the first time at Erfurt about 1507. Not
only are there very many editions of the Latin Vul-
gate long anterior to that time, but there were actu-
ally nine German editions of the Bible in the Caxton
Exhibition earlier than 1483, the year of Luther's birth
and at least three more before the end of the century."
Mr. H. Stevens writes in the Athenaeum of October
6, 1883, p. 434: "By 1507 more than one hundred
Latin Bibles had been printed, some of them small
and cheap pocket editions. There had been besides
thirteen editions of a translation of the Vulgate into
German, and others into other modern languages. . . .
Among the most interesting additions latest made (to
the Grenville Library in the British Museum) is a
nearly complete set of fourteen grand old pre-Luther
German Bibles, 1460-15 18, all in huge folios except
the twelfth, which is in quarto form." These facts
any student can verify by a visit to the British
Museum, where most of the Bibles alluded to are to
be seen.

The Athenaeum of December 22, 1883, contains
an article on "The German Bible before Luther" in
which it is shown that what Geffeken calls "the Ger-

190 The Facts About Luther

man Vulgate" was in common use among the people
long before Luther's time; that Luther had evidently
the old Catholic German Bible of 1483 before him,
when making his translation; and that consequently
it is time we should hear no more of Luther as the
first German Bible translator and of his translation
as an independent work from the original Greek.

The Protestant Professor Lindsay in his partisan
work on the Reformation published in Edinburgh in
1908 admits that "other translations of the Bible
into the German language had been made long before
Luther began his work." He says moreover: ''It is
a mistake to believe that the mediaeval Church at-
tempted to keto the Bible from the people."

Hallam, the non-Catholic historian, in his work on
the "Middle Ages," chap. ix. part 2, says: "In the
eighth and ninth centuries, when the Vulgate had
teased to be generally intelligible, there is no reason
to suspect any intention in the Church to deprive the
\aity of the Scriptures. Translations were freely made
into the vernacular languages, and, perhaps, read in
churches .... Louis the Debonair is said to have caused
a German version of the New Testament to be made.
Otfrid, in the same century, rendered the Gospels, or,
rather, abridged them, into German verse. This work
is still extant."

The well-known Anglican writer. Dr. Blunt, in his
"History of the Reformation" (Vol. I. pp. 501-502)
tells us that "there has been much wild and foolish
writing about the scarcity of the Bible in the ages
preceding the Reformation. It has been taken for
granted that the Holy Scripture was almost a sealed
book until it was printed in English by Tyndale and
Coverdale, and that the only source of knowledge re-
specting it before then was the translation made by
Wyckliffe. The facts are. . .that all laymen who could
read were, as a rule, provided with their Gospels,
their Psalter, or other devotional portions of the Bible.
Men did, in fact, take a vast amount of personal
trouble with respect to the productions of the Holy

Luther and the Bible 191

Scriptures ; and accomplished by head, hand and heart
what is now chiefly done by paid workmen and machin-
ery. The clergy studied the Word of God and made it
known to the laity; and those few among the laity
who could read had abundant opportunity of reading
the Bible either in Latin or English, up to the Reforma-
tion period."

Long before the art of printing was invented, about
1450, the monks, friars, clergy, and even the nuns of
the Catholic Church spent their lives in making copies
of the Bible in vellum, so that it might be preserved,
multiplied and scattered far and wide for the benefit
of all readers. Their labors in this direction were
constant, unceasing, and tireless. Through their in-
dustry and perseverance in reproducing the Sacred
pages from century to century every church and mon-
astery and university was put in possession of copies
of the Bible. The Bishops and Abbots of those days
encouraged the work and were zealous propagators of
the Scriptures. They required, moreover, all their
priests to know, read, and study the Inspired Word.
Councils like that of Toledo held in 835 issued decrees
insisting that Bishops were bound to inquire through-
out their dioceses whether the clergy were sufficiently
instructed in the Bible. In some cases the clergy were
obliged to know by heart not only the whole Psalter
but, as under the rule of St. Pachomius, the New
Testament as well. From time immemorial the
Church always used a great portion of the Bible in
the celebration of the Mass, in the Epistles and Gos-
pels for 365 days of the year and in the Breviary
which she enjoined her priests to recite daily.

The Sacred Scriptures were always a favorite sub-
ject of study among the clergy ; and a popular occu-
pation was the writing of commentaries upon them,
as all priests are aware from having to recite a great
many of them every day, ranging from the time of
St. Leo the Great and St. Gregory down to St.
Bernard and St. Anselm. The Scriptures besides were
read regularly to the people and explained frequently

192 The Facts About Luther

both in church and school, through sermons, instruc-
tions, and addresses, so that the faithful were steeped
in, and permeated through and through with the in-
spired Word of God. Paintings and statuary and
frescoes and stained glass windows were used in the
churches to depict Biblical subjects and fix on the
people's memories and understandings the doctrines
of faith and the great events in God's dealings with
His creatures since the beginning of the world.
Through these and other means, all, from the king
down to the humblest peasant, came to know and
understand the great and saving truths of religion as
found in the Bible. The Scriptures were made so
familiar that the people could repeat considerable por-
tions from memory, and their frequent reference
thereto by way of passing allusion is considered now
very puzzling to those who are unacquainted with the
phraseology of the Vulgate. Their ideas seemed to
fall naturally into the words of Scripture and the
language of the Bible passed into the current tongue
of the people.

One of the best evidences of the mediaeval atti-
tude and practise in the matter of Bible-reading is
furnished in the "Imitation of Christ" by Thomas a
Kempis, published about the year 1425. A Kempis,
who was a monk in the archdiocese of Cologne, had
himself made a M.S'. copy of the Bible. In the first
book, chapter I, of the ''Imitation," there are some
useful directions about reading the Holy Scriptures :

"All Holy Scripture should be read in the spirit in
which it was written. Our curiosity is often a hindrance
to us in reading the Scriptures, when we wish
to understand and to discuss, where we ought to pass
on in simplicity. . . .If thou wilt derive profit, read
with humility, with simplicity, with faith, and never
wish to have the name of learning."

In the eleventh chapter of the fourth book he says :
"I shall have moreover for my consolation and a
mirror of life Thy Holy Books, and above all Thy
Most Holy Body for my especial remedy and refuge.

Luther and the Bible 193

. . .Whilst detained in the prison of this body I
acknowledge that I need two things, food and Hght.
Thou hast therefore given to me, weak as I am, Thy
Sacred Body for the nourishment of my soul and
body, and Thou hast set Thy word as a light to my
feet. Without these two I could not live; for the
word of God is the light of my soul and Thy Sacra-
ment is the bread of life. These also may be called
the two tables set on either side in the storehouse of
Thy Holy Church."

"The mediaeval mind, as here laid down in the
greatest work of the Middle Ages, does not," as
Desmond remarks, "seem to raise any questions as to
whether it is wise to read the Bible or as to whether
the Bible is difficult to procure. These matters are
evidently not even contemplated as possible issues : on
the contrary, the excellence of Scripture reading and
its necessity as 'the light of the soul' are dwelt upon.
Be it remembered, too, that this manual of A Kempis
came at once into the hands of the laity as well as
the clergy, for it went into the vernaculars of every
nation in Europe only a few years after its first pub-
lication."

An enlightened Protestant writer, the Rev. Doctor
Cutts, in a work published by the Society for Pro-
moting Christian Knowledge, observes : "There is a
good deal of popular misapprehension about the way
in which the Bible was regarded in the Middle Ages.
Some people think that it was very little read, even
by the clerg}': whereas the fact is that the sermons
of the mediaeval preachers are m.ore full of Scripture
quotations and allusions than any sermons in these
days and the writers on other subjects are so full of
Scriptural allusion that it is evident their minds were
saturated with Scriptural diction, which they used as
commonly and sometimes with as great an absence
of good taste, as a Puritan of the Commonwealth."

The Quarterly Revieiu for Oct., 1879, dealing with
Goulburn's Life of Bp. Herbert de Losinga, says : "The
notion that people in the Middle Ages did not read

194 The Facts About Luther

their Bibles is probably exploded, except among the
more ignorant of controversialists. But a glance at
this volume is enough to show that the notion is not
simply a mistake, that it is one of the m.ost ludicrous
and grotesque of blunders. If having the Bible at
their finger's ends could have saved the Middle Ages
teachers from abuses and false doctrine, they were
certainly well-equipped. They were not merely accom-
plished textuaries. They had their minds as saturated
with the language and associations of the Sacred Text
as the Puritans of the seventeenth century."

Another Protestant writer. Dr. Maitland, in his
valuable work ''The Dark Ages," page 220, says : "To
come, however, to the question. Did the people in
the Dark Ages know anything of the Bible ? Certainly,
it was not as commonly known and as generally in
the hands of men as it is now, and has been almost
ever since the invention of printing — the reader must
not suspect m^e of wishing to maintain any such absurd
opinion ; but I do think that there is sufficient evidence
(i) that during that period the Scriptures were more
accessible to those who could use them, (2) were, in
fact, more used, and (3) by a greater number of
persons, than some modern writers would lead us to
suppose."

On page 470 the same author observes : ''The writ-
ings of the Dark Ages are, if I may use the expres-
sion, made of the Scriptures. I do not merely mean
that the writers constantly quoted the Scriptures, and
appealed to them as authorities on all occasions, though
they did this and it is a strong proof of their familiar-
ity with them ; but I mean that they thought and spoke
and wrote the thoughts and words and phrases of the
Bible, and that they did this constantly and habitually,
as the natural mode of expressing themselves." And
again, he says : "I have not found anything about
the arts and engines of hostility, the blind hatred of
half barbarian kings, the fanatical fury of their sub-
jects, or the reckless antipathy of the Popes. . . .1 know
of nothing which should lead me to suspect that any

Luther AND THE Bible 195

human craft or power was exercised to prevent the
reading, the multiplication, the diffusion of the Word
of God." (I. 6, pp. 220-1.)

Dr. Maitland in his work, p. 506, discounts the
absurd story as told by D'Aubigne of Luther "dis-
covering" a Bible for the first time when he was
twenty years old. He says : "Before Luther was
born the Bible had been printed in Rome, and the
printers had the assurance to memorialize his Holi-
ness, praying that he would help them off with some
copies. It had been printed, too, at Naples, Florence,
and Piacenza ; and Venice alone had furnished eleven
editions. No doubt, we should be within the truth
if we were to say that beiide the multitude of manu-
script copies, not yet fallen into disuse, the press had
issued fifty different editions of the whole Latin Bible,
to say nothing of Psalters, New Testaments, or other
parts. And yet, more than twenty years after, we find
a young man who had received a Very liberal educa-
tion,' who 'had made great proficiency in his studies
at Magdeburg, Eisenach, and Erfurt,' and who, never-
theless, did net know what a Bible was, simply because
'the Bible was unknown in those days.'

Proofs without number might easily be adduced to
show that the Bible was known, read and distributed
with the sanction and authority of the Church in
the common language of the people from the seventh
to the fourteenth century. Enough, however, have
been given, and we hope these will C2Lvry some
weight with intelligent and well disposed non-Cath-
olics. The contention of the ignorant and bigoted
who would have the simple and unlettered believe
that Rome hated the Bible and did her best to keep
it a locked and sealed book, is so utterly absurd and
stupid that all honest and patient researches of dis-
tinguished scholars flatly and openly oppose it by
accumulating evidence from the simplest facts of his-
tory. Instead of misrepresenting the Church, it would
be more consistent with honor and truth to proclaim
from the house-tops the debt all owe to the pious and

196 The Facts About Luther

untiring labors of the monks and nuns and clergy of
the Middle Ages who saved the written Word of God
from extinction and without whose precious and dis-
tinguished services the world to-day would not rejoice
in its possession. When will our dissenting brethren
see things as they are? When will they be candid
enough to read history aright? When will they, in
the presence of the Church's jealous guardianship
of the Bible from the beginning, rid themselves of
the silly mouthings of anti-Catholic bigots in declaring
that Luther was the very first to give his poor lan-
guishing countrymen the Bible in their own tongue,
a book which as a student in Erfurt he knew was
held in high esteem and which as a monk and priest
he w^as obliged by rule to have known, studied and
recited for years? To maintain that Luther knew
and could not find any Bibles except the one he was
supposed to discover as librarian of his convent, is
to brand him as a liar. It is interesting now to recall
what Zwingle, the Swiss Reformer, who made many
false boasts for himself, once said to Luther: ''You
are unjust in putting forth the boastful claim of drag-
ging the Bible from beneath the dusty benches of the
schools. You forget that we have gained a knowledge
of the Scriptures through the translations of others.
You are very well aware, with all your blustering,
that previously to your time there existed a host of
scholars who, in Biblical knowledge and philological
attainments, were incomparably your superiors."
(Alzog. Ill, 49.)

The Catholic Church reigned supreme for more
than fifteen hundred years before Luther introduced
his special conception of the Bible. During this long
period the Church had it in her power to do with the
Bible what she pleased. Had she hated it she could
easily have dragged into the light of dc^y every copy
then in existence, and were she so disposed could
have destroyed and reduced all to ashes. But did
she do this? The truth is that the Catholic Church,
ruled by the Pope, instead of getting rid of the Bible,

Luther and the Bible 197

saved, preserved, and guarded it all through the cen- '
turies from its institution and formation into one
volume in 397 A. D., to the sixteenth century. All
along she employed her clergy to multiply it in the
Greek and Hebrew languages, and to translate it into
Latin and the common tongues of every Christian
nation that all might read and learn and know the
Word of God. She and she alone, by her care and
loving watchfulness, saved and protected it from total
extinction and destruction. Where was Protestantism
when the Roman Emperor Diocletian issued a decree
to burn the churches and destroy the copies of the
Scriptures ? Where was Protestantism when the Huns,
the Vandals, the Turks and Saracens invaded the
Christian countries and threatened to wipe out every
vestige of Christian culture and civilization? Protes-
tantism began with Luther about the year 1520, some
1200 years after the promulgation of Emperor
Diocletian's decree. Had the Catholic Church not
carefully guarded, transcribed and preserved copies of
the Bible in the olden days, there would have been
nothing left for Luther or any others to translate.

The Catholic Church alone from the beginning de-
fended the Blessed Word of her Divine Founder and
her inspired writers. This fact is entirely ignored
in the mendacious chatter of ranting spouters and
ignorant writers whose tongues and pens are steeped
in gall and vinegar when they deal with matters Cath-
olic. In spite of modern education and the findings
of history, this particular class from bigoted motives
continue to impose on their dupes and insist without
warrant that the Church and her rulers made war,
long and persistent, upon the Bible, and that, were
it not for "the Founder of Protestantism," the good
Book would still be chained to church and monastery
walls as directories are seen to-day in hotels and other
public places. Of course, Martin Luther must be
glorified for his supposed achievement. He translated
the Bible or what pretended to be the Bible. His
mutilation of the Holy Book and t"he amputation of

198 The Facts About Luther

several of its members make little or no difference to
his admirers. It was a great work, one of the chief
and most important labors of his life, and according
to them deserves a distinguished place on the roll of
immortal achievements. With this and similar inac-
curacies and misstatements, they forthwith hail him
as "the hero of the Bible." The title pleases the mul-
titude and fascinates all who are ignorant of the facts.
It is amazing how easily most of the people are most
of the time deceived. To tell these benighted souls
that Luther was not "the hero of the Bible" would
astonish, alarm and shock. The truth is, however, he
has no claim to such honorable distinction, for, as
every scholar knows, he docked and amended and
added to the Bible, as he would, so that he made the
Word of God become the word of man by making it
the word of Dr. Luther. He sacrificed accuracy and
mistranslated the Bible with deliberate purport and
intention, in order to fit it to his false theories, and to
make it serve to buttress his heresies. His "evangelical
preaching," denouncing the time-honored spiritual
order, abolition of ecclesiastical science and the re-
jection of the sacraments, required a substitute for
the "undefiled Word of God." He produced the needed
substitute in his false and mutilated version, and for
the sacrilegious achievement his followers call him a
"hero." All the heroes of the Bible we know of were
never guilty of the liberties he took with the Word
of God. They revered and respected every word and
thought of the Bible. They neither took from nor
added thereto — as was befitting God's message to man-
kind. To call Luther's version, which is a monstrous
forgery, the Word of God is nothing less than crim-
inal and blasphemous.

Luther began his version of the Scriptures in Ger-
man during his residence at the Wartburg. He had
>ust been ordered by Charles V., who saw it was
impossible to convince him of his errors, to leave
Worms under an imperial safeguard. After going
some distance from Worms, the imperial protector

Luther and the Bible 199

was dismissed and then, according to a previous ar-
rangement, a party of friends, not a band of hostile
armed men, as is ignorantly told, appeared upon the
scene, took him from his wagon, mounted him on a
horse and conducted him in the silence of the night
to the ancient and historic castle of Wartburg. To
ensure his incognito in this place selected for his
retirement, he put aside his monk's habit, donned
the dress of a country gentleman, allowed his hair
and beard to grow and was introduced to those about
not as Martin Luther, but as Squire George. This
was the second time he changed his name. The first
time as we have seen, was about 1512, long after he
entered the University of Erfurt, where he was en-
rolled among the students not as Luther but as Liider,
by which name his family was known in the com-
munity from time immemorial. The change was per-
haps pardonable, for Liider has a vile signification,
conveying the idea of ''carrion," *'beast," "low scoun-
drel." The second assumed name. Squire George,
was a decided improvement on Liider.

The Castle of Wartburg, where Luther spent ten
months in retirement, unknown except to some
friends who were in the secret, was full of historic
and inspiring memories. It was once the residence
of the gentle and amiable St. Elizabeth and was on
this account suggestive of the holiest recollections. To
live within such precincts might be considered a privi-
lege and one well calculated to stimulate to holiness
and sanctity of behavior. The place, however, was
little to the liking of the so-called "courageous apos-
tle," who was designedly seized upon by pre-arrange-
ment with the Elector of Saxony and who was con-
stantly protected by his friends whilst disguised as
a country magnate under the assumed name of Squire
George. He would have much preferred to be out in the
open to continue his revolutionary movement publicly
and among the masses, but his intimates decreed he
should remain in solitude in the hope that the storm
xhich his wild teachings provoked might after a while

200 The Facts About Luther

blow over. His stay in the Wartburg from May, 1 521, to
March, 1522, was, according to his own account, a time
of idleness, despair and temptation. Remorse of con-
science tormented him. "It is a dangerous thing," he says,
**to change all spiritual and human order against com-
mon sense." (De Wette 2.2 10 q.) On November
25th, 1 521, he wrote to the Augustinians in Witten-
berg: ''With how much pain and labor did I scarcely
justify my conscience that I alone should proceed
against the Pope, hold him for Antichrist and the
bishops for his apostles. How often did my heart
punish me and reproach me with this strong argu-
ment : 'Art thou alone wise ?' Could all the others
err and have erred for a long time? How if thou
errest and leadest into error so many people who
would all be damned forever?" (De Wette 2-107.)
He often tried to rid himself of these anxieties, but
they always returned. Even in his old age, a voice
within, which he believed to be the voice of the devil,
asked him if he were called to preach the Gospel in
such a manner "as for many centuries no bishop or
saint had dared to do." (Sammtliche Werke, 59, 286:
60. 6. 45.) Not only was he tormented by remorse
of conscience in regard to his revolutionary work
but he was sorely tried by the devil whom he thought
he saw in every shape and form. Writinsr to his
personal friend, Nicholas Gerbel, he says : "You can
believe that I am exposed to a thousand devils in this
indolent place." He told another friend, Myconius,
that in the Castle of Wartburg, "the devil in the form
of a dog came tvv^ice to kill him." (Myconius, Hist.
Reform. 42.) "Throughout life," Vedder remarks,
"he was accustomed to refer whatever displeased or
vexed him or seemed to hinder his work to the direct
agency of the devil, in whom he believed with rather
more energy than he believed in God. So now, in-
stead of blaming his mode of life and changing it, he
ascribes all his troubles to Satan. He even seems to
have imagined that he had personal interviews with
the devil." (Vedder p. 169.) From his hiding place

Luther and the Bible 201

he writes to Melanchthon, who of course was in the
secret of his retreat, to inform him of his doings and
says: "It is now eight days that I neither write any-
thing nor pray, nor study, partly by reason of tempta-
tions of the flesh, partly because vexed by other cares.
I sit here in idleness and pray, alas ! little, and sigh not
for the Church of God. Much more am I consumed
by the fires of my unbridled flesh. In a word, I who
should burn of the spirit, am consumed by the flesh
and by lasciviousness." (De Wette, 2 : 22.) His was a
most lamentable state whilst confined at the Wartburg.
No wonder he produced a Bible full of malicious
translations. A victim of fleshly lust and one in con-
stant contact with Satan could hardly be expected to
treat the undefiled Word of God with reverence. What
reliance can be placed in a translation of the Bible
made under such unfavorable circumstances?

Luther, in a letter to his friend Lange, dated Decem-
ber 18, 1 521, announces his intention to translate the
New Testament into German. On March 30, 1522,
he writes to Spalatin, another friend, to tell that he
has completed the work and placed it in the care of
a few intimates for inspection. This leaves little more
than ten weeks for the completion of what he hoped
would ''prove a worthy work." After some revision,
the translation was ready for the press and given to
the public September 22, 1^22. The whole work was
done in great haste and as might be expected suf-
fered in consequence. The faults and imperfections
everywhere in evidence are numerous and unpardon-
able. The rapidity with which the work was pro-
duced by both author and publisher borders on the
marvelous. *Tt would be difficult," observes Vedder,
"to believe that a complete translation would have
been made by a man of Luther's limited attainments
in Greek and with the imperfect apparatus that he
possessed in the short space of ten weeks. . . .Any
minister to-day who has had the Greek course of a
college and seminary, is a far better scholar than
Luther. Let such a man, if he thinks Luther's achieve-

202 The Facts About Luther

ment possible, attempt the accurate translation of a
single chapter of the New Testament — such a trans-
lation as he would be willing to print under his own
name — and multiply the time consumed by tb*^ two
hundred and sixty pages. He will be speedily con-
vinced that the feat attributed to Luther is an impos-
sible one. What then? Is the whole story false?
That too is impossible — the main facts are too well
attested. The solution of an apparently insoluble con-
tradiction is a very simple one : Luther did not make
an independent translation : he never claimed that he
did: none of his contemporaries made the claim for
him. It is only his later admirers who have made this
statement to enhance his glory, just as they have
unduly exaggerated for the same purpose the paucity
of the Scriptures and the popular ignorance of them
before Luther's day. We now know that both these
assertions are untrue to historic fact and have mis-
led many unwary persons into inferences far indeed
from the truth. The two assertions are so intimately
connected that in showing either to be unfounded
the other is also and necessarily controverted." (Ved-
der, p. 170.)

The same Protestant Professor tells us that "the
version, Codex Teplensis, was certainly in the pos-
session of Luther and was as certainly used by him
in the preparation of his translation. This fact, once
entirely unsuspected and then hotly denied, has been
proved by the 'deadly parallel/ It appears by a verse
by verse comparison that this old German Bible was
in fact so industriously used by Luther, that the
only accurate description of Luther's version is to
call it a careful revision of the older text. . . .He had
a better text than had been available to former trans-
lators... .The old German Bible had been translated
from the Vulgate and had followed it slavishly. Luther
proposed to use the original Greek and Hebrew Scrip-
tures as the basis of his work. For the New Testa-
ment he had the second Basel edition, 15 19, of Eras-
mus, in which many of the misprints of the first edi-

LUTIIER AND THE BiBLE 203

tion had been corrected. He did not fail to consult
the Vulgate and sometimes followed that version,
which in some passages was made from an older text
than that of Erasmus."

When Luther finished the translation of the New
Testament, he, with the assistance of many friends
such as Melanchthon, Spalatin, Sturtz, Brugenhagen,
Crnciger, Justin Jonas and others, undertook the com-
pletion of the entire Bible, which was published in
German in 1534. This work, which occupied so many
years, was not entirely to his liking. It needed to be
altered still more and fitted more exactly to suit his
new teachings and more especially his main doctrine,
that nothing could be required to be believed that
is not explicitly laid c'own in the Bible. It never
occurred to him that this much cherished dogma, if
accepted, must be rejected, for it is not itself ex-
plicitly laid down anywhere in the Bible. This incon-
sistency did not, however, trouble him. Intent only
on urging his false views, he never stopped in his
work but went on changing and altering the orig-
inal translation until his death. No fewer than five
editions of the complete work were issued during his
lifetime. After 1545, when the final text was pub-
lished, numerous unauthorized reprints, abounding in
more changes, were given to the public, so that, as
Vedder says, **a critical recension finally became nec-
essary. This was accomplished about 1700 by the
Canstein Bible Institute, and that edition became the
textus receptiis of the German Bible, until its recent
revision by a committee of distinguished German
scholars. This revision is now published at the Francke
Orphanaj^e, Halle, and is rapidly superseding the orig-
inal 'Luther Bible.' " We wonder were poor Luther
alive to-day what epithet the master of vituperation
would fling at the "distinguished German scholars"
who had the boldness to give their revision and not
his Bible to the world.

Luther's translation was genuinely German in style
and spirit. He wanted to make it thoroughly German

204 The Facts About Luther

and to make the sacred authors read as though they
had been written in German. In this he had no Httle
difficuhy. "Great God," he writes, "what a labor to
employ force to make the Hebrew poets express them-
selves in German." To attain his end he often sacri-
ficed accuracy and "allowed himself," as McGiffert
says, "many liberties with the text, to the great scan-
dal of his critics." He boasted that his version was
better as a translation than the Vulgate or Septr.agint.
The earlier translations were faithful to a nicety and
much more literally correct, but their German, being
in a formative state, was harsh and crude and occa-
sionally somewhat obscure." At that time dialects
were many and various, so that people living only a
short distance apart could scarcely understand one
another. Though Luther did not create the German
language he labored in conjunction with the Saxon
Chancery to reform, modify, and enrich it. His efforts
were not without results. He had a large, full
and flexible vocabulary which he used with force in
his translation, where is displayed the whole wealth,
power and beauty of the German language. He wished
to make his Bible really a German book and under-
stood by all alike. He did not want the people, as
he said, "to get their German from the Latin as these
asses," alluding to his predecessors, "do." Lie gave
them German, simple, idiomatic, racy, colloquial, clas-
sical, and as his Bible sold for a trifle, it was pur-
chased by many, read widely and exercised a decided
influence in giving the whole country a common
tongue. We cannot deny that his translation sur-
passes those which had been published before him in
the perfection of language, but while we admit this,
we cannot but regret that he failed with all his beauty
of diction to give what his predecessors valued more
than all else, a correct, faithful and true rendition of
"the undefiled Word of God." His work is praised
as the first classic of German literature, but the dis-
tinction can never blind the scholar to its many and
serious imperfections and faults and its arbitrary addi-

Luther and the Bible 205

tions and changes maliciously introduced to favor his
individual and fanci'ful teachings as against those of
the Church sacredly held and constantly adhered to
from the beginning of Christianity.

Jerome Emser, a learned doctor of Leipsic, made
a critical examination of Luther's translation when
it first appeared and detected no less than a thousand
glaring faults. He was the first who undertook to
show the falseness of the translation and to correct
its errors; he published a very faithful version, in
which all the passages that had been falsified in the
other may be easily seen. Luther did not like this
exposure of his work by his learned antagonist and
the only reply he made v/as to launch out his usual
volley of insulting and abusive epithets. ''These popish
asses," said he, "are not able to appreciate my labors."
(Sackendorf, Comm. L. I. sect. 52.) Yet even Sacken-
dorf gives us to understand that, in his cooler mo-
ments, the reformer availed himself of Emser's correc-
tions and made many further changes in his version.

Martin Bucer, a brother Reformer, says that Luther's
"falls in translating and explaining the Scriptures
were manifest and not a few." (Bucer, Dial, contra
Melanchthon.) Zwingle, another leading Reformer,
after examining his translation, openly pronounced it
"a corruption of the Word of God." (Amicable Dis-
cussion, Trevern, i, 129 — note.) Hallam says: "The
translation of the Old and the New Testament by
Luther is more renowned for the purity of its Ger-
man idiom than for its adherence to the original text.
Simon has charged him with ignorance of Hebrew ;
and when we consider how late he came to the knowl-
edge of that or the Greek language, it may be believed
that his acquaintance with them was far from exten-
sive." (Hallam, Historical Literature I. 201.) "It
has been as ill-spoken of among Calvinists as by the
Catholics themselves" (Note ibid). It is now, as might
be expected, grown almost obsolete, even in Germany
itself. It is viewed as faulty and insufficient in many

206 The Facts About Luther

respects. In 1836, many Lutheran consistories called
for its entire revision.

The errors in Luther's version were not those of
ignorance, but were a wilful perversion of the Scrip-
tures to suit his own views. A few examples will
suffice to prove our contention. In St. Matthew III,
2, he renders the word, "repent, or do penance,'' by
the expression "mend, or do better."

Acts XIX, 18, "Many of them that believed came
confescing and declaring their deeds." Lest this
should confirm the practice of confession, he refers the
deeds to the apostles, and renders "they acknowledge
the miracles of the apostles." These errors were after-
wards corrected by his followers. The expression "full
of grace" in the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin,
he renders "Thou gracious one." Romans IV, 15; "the
law worketh wrath," he translates, "the law worketh
only wrath," thus adding a word to the text and chang-
ing its sense.

Romans III, 28, "We account a man to be justified
by faith without the works of the law" he renders by
the interpolating of a word, "We hold that a man is
justified without works of the law by faith alone,"
His answer to Emser's exposition of his perversion
of the text was: "If your Papist annoys you with the
word {alone), tell him straightway: Dr. Martin
Luther will have it so : Papist and ass are one and
the same thing. Whoever will not have my trans-
lation, let him give it the go-by : the devil's thanks to
him who censures it without my will and knowledge.
Luther will have it so and he is a doctor above all
the doctors in Popedom." (Amic. Discussion i, 127.)
Thus Luther defends his perversion of Scripture and
makes himself the supreme judge of the Bible. His
work, faulty and erroneous, places the true Lutheran
in a serious dilemma. He needs the Bible for his sal-
vation and yet he cannot be sure that Luther has
given him a version possessing any binding force.

Luther translated and altered the Sacred Word by
the freedom of his opinions. His irreverent work

Luther and the Bible 207

did not stop here. As he rejected the authority of
the teaching Church, he had no 3^uide but his own
whim and took upon himself to expunge from the
canon of Inspired Writings those of the Old Testa-
ment, known as deuterocanonical books, although they
had always been received by the Oriental churches
and especially by those who occupied the Holy Land,
and who, consequently, had preserved the books con-
tinuously. In his prefaces to these books he gives
at length his opinion as to their character and author-
ity. The result was that they were published as
''Apocrypha," or books profitable for pious reading,
but no part of the Sacred Text, because not inspired by
the Holy Ghost. The catalogue in the edition of 1534
gives as "Apocrypha," Judith, Wisdom, Tobias,
Ecclesiasticus, the two books of Maccabees, parts of
Esther, parts of Daniel and the prayer of Manasses.

But even for the books he chose to retain, he showed
little or no respect. Here are some examples of
his judgments on them. Of the Pentateuch he says :
**We have no wish either to see or hear Moses."
"Judith is a good, serious, brave tragedy." "Tobias
is an elegant, pleasing, godly comedy." "Ecclesias-
ticus is a profitable book for an ordinary man." "Of
very little worth is the book of Baruch, whoever the
worthy Baruch may be." "Esdras I would not trans-
late, because there is nothing in it which you might
not find better in Aesop." "Job spoke not as it stands
\ written in his book ; but only had such thoughts. It
I is merely the argument of a fable. It is probable
} that Solomon wrote and made this book." "The book
I entitled 'Ecclesiastes' ought to have been more com-
. plete. There is too much incoherent matter in it. It
has neither boots nor spurs ; but rides only in socks
as I myself did when an inmate of the cloister. Solo-
mon did not, therefore, write this book, which was
made in the days of the Maccabees of Sirach. It is
like a Tahrsud, com.pilcd from many books, perhaps
in Egypt at the desire of King Evergetes." "The
book of Esther I toss into the Elbe. I am such an

20S The Facts About Luther

enemy to the book of Esther that I wish it did not
exist, for it Judaizes too much and has in it a great
deal of heathenish naughtiness." "The history of
Jonah is so monstrous that it is absolutely incredible."
**The first book of the Maccabees might have been
taken into the Scriptures, but the second is rightly
cast out, though there is some good in it."

The books of the New Testament fared no better.
He rejected from the Canon the Epistle to the He-
brews, the Epistle of St. James, the Epistle of St.
^ Jude and the Apocalypse. These he placed at the
end of his translation, after the others which he called
"the true and certain capital books of the New Testa-
ment." He says: "The first three (Gospels) speak
of the Avorks of Our Lord rather than of his oral
# teachings : that of St. John is the only sympathetic,
f the only true Gospel and should be undoubtedly pre-
ferred to the others. In like manner the Epistles of
St. Peter and St. Paul are superior to the first three
Gospels." The Epistle to the Hebrews did not suit
him. "It need not surprise one to find here," he
says, "bi^sjDf wood, hay and straw." The Epistle
of St. James, Luther denounced as "an epistle of
straw." "I do not hold it," he said, "to be his writ-
ing, and I cannot place it among the capital books."
He did this because it proclaimed the necessity of
good works contrary to his heresy. "There are many
things objectionable in this book," he says of the
Apocalypse; "to my mind it bears upon it no marks
of an apostolic or prophetic character. . . .Every one
may form his own judgment of this book; as for
myself, I feel an aversion to it, and to me this is
sufficient reason for rejecting it." (SammtHche
Werke, 63, 169-170.) At the present day and for a
long time previously, the Lutherans, ashamed of these
excesses, have replaced the two Epistles and the
Apocalypse in the Canon of the Sacred Scriptures.

Luther declared time and again that he looked upon
the Bible "as if God himself spoke therein." "Yet,"
as Gigot says, ''inconsistently with this statement, he

• Luther and the Bible 209

freely charges the sacred writers with inaccurate state-
ments, unsound reasonings, the use of imperfect mate-
rials and even urges the authority of Christ against
that of Holy Writ." In a word, as is admitted by a
recent Protestant writer: "Luther has no fixed theory
of inspiration: if all his works suppose the inspira-
tion of the Sacred Writings, all his conduct shows that
he makes himself the supreme judge of it." (Rabaud,
p. 42.) His pride was intense. He conceived him-
self directly illuminated by the Holy Ghost and second
only to the Godhead. In this spirit of arrogance
and balspheny, he did as he willed with the Sacred
Volume, which had been handed down through the
centuries in integrity, truth, and authority. The old
and accepted Bible he knew in his professorial days
was an awkward book for him, when in the period
of his religious vertigo he rebelled against the Church
which had preserved, guarded and protected it during
the previous fifteen hundred years. It went straight
against his heresies and he would not have it as it
had been handed down in integrity and complete-
ness. He twisted, distorted, and mutilated it. He
changed it, added to and took from it, to make it fit
his newly found teaching. He feels abundantly com-
petent, by his own interior and spiritual instinct, to
pronounce dogmatically which books in the Canon
of Scripture are inspired and which are not. Nothing
embarrasses him. To make his Testament more Luth-
eran, though less Scriptural, was his object. Reverent
scholars decried his arbitrary handling of the Sacred
Volume. He, however, cared little for their protests.
In his usual characteristic raving, he cries out: —
"Papists and asses are synonymous terms." ...He
will have his changes in the sacred text right or wrong.
"Here one must yield not a nail's breadth to any,
neither to the angels of Heaven, nor to the gates of
Hell, nor to St. Paul, nor to a hundred Emperors, nor
to a thousand Popes, nor to the whole world; and this
be my watchword and sign: — tessera et symhohim."
The Inspired Word of God was nothing to Luther

210 The Facts About Luther

when it could not be made to square with Lutheran-
ism. He is prepared to assume the whole responsi-
bility for the changes he made and believes he has the
faculty of judging the Bible without danger of error.
He believes he is infallible. "My word," says he, in
an exhortation to his followers, "is the word of Christ :
my mouth is the mouth of Christ." And to prove this,
he indulges in a prophecy: he proclaims that "if his
Gospel is preached but for tv/o years, then. Pope,
bishops, cardinals, priests, monks, nuns, bells, bell-
towers, masses — rules, statues and all the vermin and
riff-raff of the Papal government, will have vanished
like smoke." Luther with all this flourish of trum.-
pets proved himself a false prophet. The Church
that he thought would "vanish like sm.oke" is still in
existence and now as ever cries out in the words of
her Founder: "There will rise up false Christs and
false prophets and they shall show signs and won-
ders to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.
Take ye heed, therefore : behold I have foretold you
all things." St. Mark XHI, 22, 23.

Not only did Luther knowingly make additions to
the text and expunge from the Canon some of the
Inspired Books, but, he distorted the meaning of
several passages by interpretations that were erroneous
and nothing short of blasphemous. He even went so
far as to accuse the Divine Author of playful men-
dacity, of irony, when no ether sense of the Inspired
Words would suit the Lutheran cause. "This cham-
pion of free inquiry/' says Alzog, the historian, "was
obliged to go whither the logical deductions of
his system would lead him: and he did not halt at
difficulties. There were Scripture texts plainly
against his theory of the inherent slavery of the human
will : but even these he set aside by an ipse dixit, dis-
torting them from their natural sense and obvious
meaning, by blasphemously asserting that God in
inspiring the passages in question, was playfully men-
dacious, secretly meaning just the reverse of what He
openly revealed; and that the Apostles, when speak-

Luther and the Bible 211

ing of the human will and actions, gave way to an
impulse of unseemly levity and used words in an
ironical sense." (Alzog. Vol. Ill, p. 227.)

"To do," said Luther, ''means to believe — to keep the
law by faith. The passage in Matthew: Do this and
thou shalt live, signifies Believe this and thou shalt
live. The words, Do this have an ironical sense, as
if our Lord should say : Thou wilt do it to-morrow,
but not to-day ; only make an attempt to keep the com-
mandments, and the trial will teach thee the ignominy
of thy failure."

This illustration, one out of many, shows Luther's
unscrupulous method of distorting the plain and evi-
dent meaning of the Inspired Word of God. What
he did with this text, he did with hundreds of others.
In the most reckless and unblushing manner tHis self-
appointed expositor twisted backwards and forwards
the Sacred Word at will to force it to conform to his
special whims and fancies. When he had shorn the
Bible of its proportions and changed it in the direction
of his new religious 'theories, he had the daring and
boldness to call his v/ork the work of God. Like all
other heretics he made himself an infallible authority,
and as such insisted that his special version be re-
ceived as the work of God. He knew full well that
he had mutilated, distorted, and perverted the Bible,
but what cared he when, in his folly, he wanted his
word to be taken for the V/ord of God. His new re-
ligious system was formulated and based exclusively
on the Scriptures, not however on the Scriptures
known to the world for so many centuries before, but
the Scriptures as translated, interpreted and under-
stood by the "Founder of Lutheranism."

This travesty of the Divine Revelation, falsified in
most of its lines and stripped of its Divine character,
he gave to the people on his own authority to be
henceforward their sole means of salvation and their
guide in judging for themselves in all matters of faith.
To spite the authority of the Church and advance
his destructive theories, he constituted everybody, man

212 The Facts About Luther

or won:an, young or old, learned or unlearned, wise
or foolish, absolute judges of the meaning of the
Bible. This arbitrary act pleased the unthinking mul-
titudes, who now with lamentable folly began like him-
self to reject the authority of the Church established
by God and to substitute therefor the authority of
man, human, fallible, blasphemous and bent on the
destruction of the Christian Creed and of Divine faith.
Through the fluctuations of passion and the incon-
sistencies of the human intellect, divisions and parties
and sects began to abound on all sides as a result of
widely different interpretations until the Inspired
Word of God, made the text-book of party strife, lost
all its Divine character and sank to the level of the
human mind.

The work begun by Luther was followed up with
ardor by those whom he led into rebellion against the
Church. Beza, Zwingle, Calvin and a host of other
malcontents claimed the same powder and authority
as Luther, to be supreme judges of the interpretation
and meaning of the Scriptures. In their hands the
Bible, without note or comment, without an infallible
voice to which men may listen, became the fruitful
source of disunion, the foundation of enormous and
conflicting errors, and the destroyer one by one of
nearly all the principal truths of revealed religion. It
is really painful to read the lamentations of the Protes-
tant writers of those days over the utter and inextri-
cable confusion in which nearly every doctrinal sub-
ject had been involved by the disputes and conten-
tions consequent upon the introduction of the indi-
vidual interpretation of the Bible. "So great" writes
the learned Christopher Fischer, superintendent of
Smalkald, "are the corruptions, falsifications and scan-
dalous contentions, which, like a fearful deluge, over-
spread the land, and afflict, disturb, mislead and per-
plex poor, simple, common men not deeply read in
Scriptures, that one Is completely bewildered as to
what side Is right and to which he should give his
adhesion." An equally unimpeachable witness of the

Luther and the Bible 213

same period admits that ''so great, on the part of
most people, is the contempt of religion, the neglect
of piety and the trampling down of virtue, that they
would seem not to be Christians, nothing but down-
right savage barbarians."

Luther sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind.
He saw the miseries of the distracted Reformation he
brought into life and was plunged into the deepest
despair. Losing all control of himself, he would at
times berate with severest, even unbecoming language,
all who dared to put into practice the principle of
private judgment. In one of his frequent exhibitions of
temper he cried out : ''How many doctors have I made
by preaching and writing! Now they say, Be off with
you. Go off with you. Go to the devil. Thus it must
be. When we preach they laugh. . . . When we get angry
and threaten them, they mock us, snap their fingers at
us and laugh in their sleeves." (Walch Vll. 2^10.)
What other treatment could he expect ? He taught them
to decide for themselves the meaning of the Bible, and
as his teaching led to the creation of as many creeds
as there were intlividuals, he had none to blame but
himself. According to his own principle the opinions
of any of the rabble were as good as his in finding
out their faith and in the interpretation of the Scrip-
ture. When he did away with Divine authority and
rejected a Divine witness in dealing with the Bible,
it ill became him to lecture his own children for imitat-
ing his example.

"There is no smearer," he said, "but when he has
heard a sermon or can read a chapter in German,
makes a doctor of himself and crowns his ass and
convinces himself that he knows everything better than
all who teach him." (Walch V. 1652.) "When we
have heard or learned a few things about Holy Scrip-
ture, we think we are already doctors and have swal-
lowed the Holy Ghost, feathers and all." (Walch V.
472.) Mark how this erratic man speaks of the third
person of the Blessed and Adorable Trinity. Will the
Bible Christian approve the blasphemous language?

214 The Facts About Luther

Does this show his mouth was the mouth of Christ?
We will not wait for an answer as we would learn
more fiom Luther concerning the failure of his cher-
ished teaching. "This one," he says, ''will not hear
of baptism, that one denies the sacrament, another puts
a world between this and the last day : some teach
that Christ is not God, some say this, some say that:
there are about as many sects and creeds as there are
heads. No yokel is so rude, but when he has dreams
and fancies, he thinks himself inspired by the Holy
Ghost and must be a prophet/' (D3 Wette III, 61.)
Seeing his power and authority to control the masses
gone, he now in a spirit of disappointment sarcas-
tically remarks : "Noblemen, townsmen, peasants, all
classes understand the Evangelium better than I or St.
Paul; they are now wise and think themselves more
learned than all the ministers." (Walch XIV, 1360.)
Thus Luther himself testifies to the utter failure of
the cardinal principle of his so-called Reformation.

As early as 1523, when Carl von Bodmann heard
that Luther declared the Bible's authority is to be
recognized as far only as it agrees with one's "ipirit,"
he asked the very pertinent question : "What will be
the consequences of the Reformer's principle about
the interpretation and value of the Sacred Scriptures?
He rejects this book and that as not apostolic, as
spurious, because it does not agree w^ith his spirit.
Other people will reject other books for the same rea-
sons and finally they will not believe in the Bible at
all and will treat like any profane book."

Von Bodmann's words seemed to have in them the
ring of prophecy. The outlook for the honor, dig-
nity and authority of the Bible among the followers
of the Reformer was indeed gloomy. Luther saw the
injurious results o:'^ his principle of private interpreta-
tion. Depressed by the thoughts of what the future
would unfold, he said to Melanchthon one day whilst
at table : "There will be the greatest confusion.
Nobody will allow himself to be led by another man's
doctrine or authority. Everybody will be his own

Luther and the Bible 215

rabbi: hence the greatest scandals." (Lanterb. 91.)
Just so. He opened the floodgates of infidehty and
nothing but ruin and disaster to countless souls might
be expected in consequence.

Luther's system contained in itself the germs of
infideHty and paved the way for the Rationalists who
in Germany, hardly surpass their master. Every one
knows what the general influence of the Reformation
on Biblical studies in Germany has been. The Ration-
alism which it generated prevails still to an alarm-
ing extent throughout almost the whole of the first
theatre of Protestantism and is daily working havoc
amongst all classes. "This system," as Spalding
says, "which is little better than downright Deism,
has frittered away t'^.e very substance of Christianity.
The inspiration of the Bible itself, the integrity of
its canon, the truth of its numerous and clearly attested
miracles, the Divinity and even the resurrection of
Christ and the existence of grace, and everything
supernatural in religion have all fallen before the
Juggernaut-car like of modern German Protestant
exegesis or system of interpretation. The Rational-
ists of Germany have left nothing of Christianity,
scarcely even its lifeless skeleton. They boldly and
unblushingly proclaim their infidel principles through
the press, from the professor's chair and from the
pulpit. And the most learned and distinguished among
the present German Protestant clergy have openly em-
braced this infidel system. Whoever doubts the en-
tire accuracy of this picture of modern German Prot-
estantism, needs only open the works of Semmler,
Damon, Paulus, Strauss, Eichorn, Michaelis, Teuer-
bach, Bretschneider, Wo'tman, and others."

The following extract from the sermons of the Rev.
Dr. Rose, a learned divine of the Church of England,
presf^nts a graphic sketch of these German Rational-
ists : "They are bound by no law, but their own fancies ;
some are m'^re and some are less extravagant; but I
do them no injustice after this declaration in saying,
that the general inclination and tendency of their

216 The Facts About Luther

opinions (more or less forcibly acted on) is this: That
in the New Testament, we shall find only the opiniotis
of Christ and the Apostles adapted to the age in which
they lived, and not eternal truths: that Christ Him-
self had neither the design nor the power of teach-
mg any system which was to endure; that when He
taught any enduring truth, as He occasionally did, it
was without being aware of its nature ; that the Apos-
tles understood still less of real religion; that the
whole doctrine both of Christ and the Apostles, as it
was directed to the Jews alone, so it was gathered
from no other source than the Jewish philosophy ; that
Christ Himself erred ( !) and His Apostles spread His
errors, and that consequently not one of His doctrines
is to be received on cheir authority ; but that, with-
out regard to the authority of the books of Scripture
and their asserted Divine origin, each doctrine is to
be examined according to the principles of right reason,
before it is allowed to be Divine."

Since these words were written some forty or more
years ago the Higher Critics have multiplied lo an
alarming extent and the boldness of the extravagancies
in which they constantly indulge in regard to the treat-
ment of the Inspired Word is a scandal to all lovers
of the Bible. The Scriptures in their estimation are
no more sacred than any other writings. They not
only subject them to the most unreasoning criticism
but strive by every means known to erratic and un-
scientific minds to question their inspiration, under-
mine their authority and underestimate their saving
teachings. Too proud to ''stand in the old paths" des-
ignated by Mother Church, they take to the "new one
struc'- out by Luther" and with private judgment for
guide and under the guise of libert}* of thought, they
attack the "open Bible," now exposed to the vagaries,
passions and humors of individual readers, and not
only abuse but despoil and strip it of its ancien* beauty,
sacredness and authority. How could an "open Bible,"
with a perception of it hermetically sealed, and an
erring "private judgment" meet with other than de-

Luther and the Bible 217

struction and lead to "perdition?" as St. Peter de-
clares. F'rom a book of life, they make it a book
of death. They vaunt their zeal for it only to compass
in its rejection.

As we recall the extraordinary and almost incredi-
ble developments of the principle of private judgment,
which supports a hundred contradictory systems of
religion, we are forcibly reminded of what St. Paul
writes of the ancient philosophers, that they "became
vain in their thoughts" and "thinking themselves wise
became fools." The sad aberrations of the so-called
learned bibliomaniacs of the various countries fur-
nish palpable evidence of the necessity of a Divinely
appointed guide in religious matters.

The Bible manifestly contains and teaches but one
religion. Truth is but one. There is but one revela-
tion and, therefore, but one true interpretation of that
volume which is its record. The Catholic Church,
which existed before the Bible, which made the Bible,
which selected the books and settled and closed the
Canon of Holy Scriptures, has alone in her posses-
sion the key to the true meaning of the Sacred Orachs
of which she was the guardian in all ages and under
all circumstances. The same Holy Spirit which
founded the Church and inspired the Scriptures, made
her the authorized interpreter of the Divine Word
and the same Holy Spirit, as He promised, has ever
abided in her to guard and protect from all possi-
bility of error in penetrating and expounding the book
of life and salvation. God could not do less than safe-
guard His work. He would not have His children
"tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind
of doctrine, in the wickedness of mon, in craftiness,
by which they lie in wait to deceive." Ephes. IV., 14.
God therefore established the Chr^ch to be a wit-
ness to His revelation. He made her the external and
infallible authority to declare that the Bi^le is His
Word and is inspired by Him. V/ith the Church
the Bible is a book of life. Her infallible interpreta-
tion guarantees unhesitating certainty in all matters

218 The Facts About Luther

of faith and morals, that peace and not dissension,
certainty and not confusion, unity and not division may
prevail amongst men of good will. Without this
Church there is no witness to the revelation or re-
demption of Christ and no other Divinely constituted
teacher of the Word of God.

To-day there are outside the Catholic Church num-
bers of good, plain, intelligent men who love Divine
truth and are anxious to know it as it was announced
in the beginning by the Master in all fullness and
perfection. They love the Bible, but have grown tired
of being tossed about by every wind of doctrine as
set in motion by any new fledged divine with a
superficial education who imagines that he has re-
ceived a call from heaven to inaugurate a new re-
ligion. They know that in the Scriptures there "are
some things hard to understand," ''that many wrest
them to their own perdition" and that they do not
contain all the truths necessary for salvation. They
feel that the Scriptures alone cannot be a sufficient
guide and rule of faith, because they cannot, at any
time, be within the reach of every inquirer. They
know it is impossible for any one to learn his faith
from the Bible alone. The feeling grows on them
that their edition of the Bible has been mutilated, that
it has been tampered with, that it has rejected what
the Holy Ghost has dictated, that it has deliberately
cut out what God had put in. Then they recall the
solemn warning contained in the closing words of the
Apocalypse: *Tf any man shall take away from the
words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take
away his part out of the book of life and out of the
Holy City and from these things that are written in
this book." The arbitrary act of the reformers in
changing the Word of God fills them, as well it might,
with horror and distrust. They must not, however, be
discouraged. They must learn to put aside their old
time prejudices and arouse their perceptions to see that
what they call "the Church of Rome," which they
were taught hated the Bible, is indeed the Church of

Luther and the Bible 219

Jesns of Nazareth and holds sacred and uncorrupted
every verse of the Gospel. They must be taught that
all who would know God, and who would learn what
God is, in all His beauty and His truth, must know
Him in His Incarnate Son and humbly follow the
solemn command '*to hear the Church," which He
made "the pillar and ground of truth," under the awful
penalty of being reckoned "with heathens and pub-
licans."

Once this Voice is recognized, as right reason and
faith demand, men of good-will, earnest and sincere,
will become filled with the sure knowledge of God and
His revelation, as it is in Christ and His Church, and
peace shall possess their souls. They will return to
the Church of their fathers whence they were beguiled
by the false teachings of unscrupulous and crafty men,
and discover that whilst she fearlessly leaves the
whole Scriptures as they were given her in the begin-
ning in their original, untouched majesty, yet she
pours upon them a full stream of light which draws
out into life and beauty and salvation their minutest
shades of meaning — a light which they have sought in
vain to draw from Luther and his erroneous prin-
ciples of Biblical interpretation.

CHAPTER VII.
Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion

LUTHER was a regularly ordained priest of the
Catholic Church and ''his lips", according to Holy
Writ, should "keep knowledge" for all who would "seek
the law at his mouth ; because he is the angel of the Lord
of Hosts." In assuming the sacred office of the priest-
hood, his mission was not only to the religious, but to
the social order, for both are from God their Founder.
Like all priests before and after his time, he understood
that his duty was not only to acquire, but to keep that
knowledge which was necessary for all who sought the
law at his mouth in order to teach the things men
should render to God and the things they should render
to Caesar. The mission of the priest, as the keeper and
expositor of Divine knowledge and heavenly truth, is
not merely to the individual, but to the nation in
its corporate capacity. This was manifestly the will
and the design of Christ when He commissioned His
Apostles "to go and teach the nations all things whatso-
ever He had commanded." This Gospel embodies all
knowledge and all truth, and its message, which is one
of peace and good will, is intended to promote among
the peoples the blessings of tranquility, good feeling
and fraternal union.

"Anointed," as Luther was, "to preach the Gospel
of peace," and commissioned to communicate to all the
knowledge which uplifts, sanctifies and saves, it is
certainly pertinent to ask what was his attitude to the
ministry of the Divine word, and in what manner did
he show by speech and behavior the heavenly sanc-
tions of law, Divine, international and social?

As we draw near this man and carefully examine
his career we find that in an evil moment he abandoned
the spirit of discipline, became a pursuer of novelty,
and put on the ways and the manners of the "wolf in
sheep's clothing" whose teeth and claws rent asunder

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 221

the seamless garment of Divine knowledge which
should have been kept whole for the instruction and the
comfort of all who were to seek the law at his lips.
His words lost their savor and influence for good, and
only foulness and mocking blaspheii^y filled his mouth,
to deceive the ignorant and lead them into error, license
.and rebellion against both Church and State. Out of
the abundance of a corrupt heart this fallen priest, who
had departed from the Divine source of that knowledge
which is unto peace, shamelessly advanced theories and
principles which cut at the root of all order, authority
and obedience, and inaugurated an antogonism and a
disregard for the sanctity of law such as the world
had not known since pagan times. His Gospel was
not that of the Apostles who issued from the upper
room of Jerusalem in the power of those ''parted
tongues, as it were of fire." His doctrine stript of its
cunning and deceit, was nothing else, to use the words
of St. James describing false teaching, but "earthly,
sensual, devilish" ; so much so, that men of good sense
could no longer safely ''seek the law at his mouth"
and honestly recognize him as ''the angel of the Lord
of Hosts" sent with instructions for the good of the
flock and the peace of the nations. Opposed to all
law, order, and restraint he could not but disgrace his
ministry, proclaim his own shame, and prove to every
wise and discerning follower of the true Gospel of
peace, the groundlessness of his boastful claims to be
in any proper sense a benefactor of society, an up-
holder of constituted authority and a promoter of the
best interests of humanity.

Luther, like many another framer of religious and
political heresy, may have begun his course blindly
and with little serious reflection. He may have never
stopped to estimate the lamentable and disastrous
results to which his heretofore unheard-of propaganda
would inevitably lead. He m.ay not have directly
intended the ruin, desolation and misery which his
seditious preaching effected in all directions. "But,"
as Verres aptly says, "if a man standing on one of the
snow capped giants of the Alps were to roll down a

2t2 The Facts About Luther

little stone, knowinr' what consequences would follow,
he would be answerable for the desolation caused by
the avalanche in the valley below. Luther put into
motion not one little stone, but rock after rock, and he
must have been shortsighted indeed or his blind hatred
made him so, if he was unable to estimate beforehand
what effect his inflammatory appeals to the masses of
the people and his wild denunciations of law and order
would have." He should, as a matter of course, have
weighed well and thoroughly the merits or demerits of
his "new gospel" before he announced it to an undis-
criminating public, and wittingly or unwittingly un-
barred the floodgates of confusion and unrest. Deliber-
ation., however, was a process little known to this man
of many moods and violent temper. To secure victory
in his quarrel with the Church absorbed his attention
to the exclusion of all else, and, although he may not
have reflected in time on the effects of his revolutionary
teachings he is none the less largely responsible for the
religious, political and social upheaval of his day,
which his wild and passionate harangues fomented
and precipitated. Nothing short of a miracle could
prevent his reckless, persistent and unsparing denun-
ciations of authority and its representatives from
undermining the supports by which order and dis-
cipline in Church and State were upheld. As events
proved, his wild words, flung about in reckless pro-
fusion, fell into souls full of the fermenting passions
of the time and turned Germany into a land of misery,
darkness and disorder.

Luther conceived himself to be a religious teacher
of no ordinary standing. In his self-exploitation, he
time and time again boasted that "his word was the
word of Christ" and that *'his mouth was the mouth of
Christ." Holy Writ tells us that "the words of the
Lord are pure words ; as silver tried by the fire, purified
from the earth, refined seven times" ; but the great
biblical scholar Luther imagined himself to be must not
have been acquainted with this pronouncement, for
we find in his utterances on all vital religious and social
questions such falsity and rudeness of speech as were

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 223'

never before voiced by the most depraved of mortals.
His mouth could hardly be the mouth of Christ, as
he claimed, for we find it most unbecomingly glorying
in holding up all things holy, sacred and venerable to
unceasing ridicule and scorn. As all who are familiar
with his utterances know, he roared like an enraged
animal against the Church which the Master founded,
and impudently declared her *'to be the jaws of hell,
kept wide open by the anger of God." In the vilest
and bitterest terms he denounced the head of the
Church, who governed in Peter's place, and asserted
him to be "Antichrist," "the man of sin," "the general
heresiarch," "the chief of all heresies," and the one
who "deserved to be torn in pieces wuth hot glim-
mering pincers." Nor was he more respectful towards
the episcopate of the Catholic Church, against which he
declaimed like a madman. If you consult his "Treatise
against the Priestly Hierarchy" you will discover for
yourself how he indulges in the very wildest expression
of passionate abuse against the sacrament of Holy
Orders. Ulenberg says this incendiary volume has the
appearance of being written "not with ink, but with
human blood." In this work Luther is not ashamed to
call the successors of the Apostles "hobgoblins of the
devil," and because they would not adopt and follow
his teaching he wanted them "wiped off the face of
the earth in a great rising." "Whoever," he cries out,
"shall assist and lend his personal influence, means and
reputation that the episcopate be destroyed and the rule
of bishops exterminated, is a beloved son of God, a
true Christian, an observer of God's commandments
and wars against the ordinance of the devil." Decency
prevents us from quoting further from this malicious
work written to weaken and destroy the very order to
which its author was indebted for his priesthood.
Suffice it to say that only one who had fallen from the
grace of his state could thus recklessly encourage the
destruction of the episcopate and openly commend
sacrilege and murder as means for the mob to become,
as he declares, "the true sons of God and the right
kind of Christians." It is almost unthinkable that any

224 The Facts About Luther

one using this passionate and extravagant language
would dare insist that "his mouth was the mouth of
Christ," and yet Luther was so persuaded of it that
he prophesied that *'if his gospel is preached but for
two years, then Pope, bishops, cardinals, priests, monks,
nuns, bells, bell-towers, masses . . . rules, statues and
all the riff-raff of the Papal government will have
vanished like smoke." The prediction, as might be
expected, was never fulfilled. The Church went on
calmly and serenely in the discharge of her heavenly
mission as if the false prophet and his sateUites had
never existed.

The tirades which Luther hurled incessantly against
the Church and her ministers were only preludes to
those he aimed against secular government and its
legitimate representatives. The seeds of discord he
so lavishly sowed in the soil of the Church were
gradually but effectively introduced into that of the
State. It could not be otherwise. He was naturally
of a belligerent temperament and an enemy to all
existing institutions, laws and ordinances that were
not in agreement with his ever changing policies. The
most cursory examination of what he called his "new
gospel" proclaims this characteristic and shows most
convincingly the mighty difference existing between
its spirit and that announced by the primitive Church.
In its every line is written large the grant of liberty
to violate all law and to disregard all authority save
his own. Did he not set the example of disobedience
to legitimate rule by rejecting the authority of the head
of the Church and declaring, "Popery is an institution
of the devil?" Did he not spurn God Himself when
he admitted the authority of the devil who "argued
in favor of his doctrine of justification by faith alone
and against Mary and the Saints?" Did he not,
without warrant or proof, proclaim his own authority
as that of an Evangelist, who was not even to be judged
bv an Angel? Did he not reject several portions of
the inspired Word of God and falsify others by addi-
tions and suppressions to make them express liis

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 225

teaching of justification by faith alone? Did he not
show throughout his excommunicated career the utmost
recklessness concerning the most fundamental laws of
God and an insufferable arrogance and intolerance
towards all who refused to submit to his dictation?
Did he not maintain that the poor man **has ample
reason to break forth with the flail and the club" and
when the peasants did break forth with the flail and
the club and his advice to lay these down was ignored,
did he not order everybody ''to strike in .... to
strangle and stab, secretly or openly — for in the case
of a man in open rebellion everybody is both chief
justice and executioner ?"

In Luther's estimation his "new gospel,'* which was
a gospel of rebellion and not of law and order, was
paramount to all else. He wanted it with all its
incendiarism to be made known and proclaimed in all
directions. In supplicating his f ellov/ rebels to "spread
and aid others to spread his new gospel," he exhorted
all to be mindful in carrying out his designs to "teach,
write and preach that all human establishments are
vain." (See Hazlitt p. 375.) This was his ultimatum
and none in the community must be at hberty to dis-
regard or ignore it. In case any were found bold
enough to oppose the spread of the new gospel, he
ordered that they should be treated with the utmost
severity. No quarter was to be given to the violators
of his commands. He decreed in the most dictatorial
manner that all who opposed his religious program
were to be "denied all rights, all power, all authority
and like wolves were to be shunned and avoided."
Imagining himself to be the sole keeper of all heavenly
blessings, he promised in his famous "Bull," "the grace
of God as a reward to all who would observe and carry
out" his new and rebellious injunctions.

To respect, honor and obey legitimate authority,
whether ecclesiastical or civil, had always been a sacred
precept of the Catholic Church. With St. Paul she
ever proclaimed what he wrote to Titus: "Admonish
them to be subject to authorities and powers, and to

226 The Facts About Luther

obey at a word; to be ready in every good work, to
speak evil of no man, not to be litigious, but gentle,
showing all mildness to all men." For centuries the
Church upheld by word and work the heavenly sanc-
tions of law and order and whether men would hear,
or whether they would forbear, her voice has ever been
true to that of the Master who said : 'The Scribes and
the Pharisees have sat in the chair of Moses. All
things, therefore, whatsoever they shall say to you,
observe and do, but according to their works do ye not ;
for they say and do not." St. Matt, xxiii, 2, 3. Obe-
dience to the State is not an institution of modern
establishment, nor is it not solely one of man's estab-
lishment. Obedience to law, obedience to the repre-
sentative of law, to Caesar, is a Divine institution, for
God Himself taught respect for civil authority when
He bade the Pharisees, "Render to Caesar the things
that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are
God's." Civil allegiance was thus raised from a mere
spiritual obedience to a meretorious obedience, one
which demanded for the law and which brought its
own rewards and punishments. It created a new type
of citizenship founded upon law and order and abso-
lute obedience. God's way is the way of discipline,
of order and of respect for dominion, and His Church
will not suffer departure therefrom in dealing with
legitimate authority even when exercised by a Nero or
by any of his cruel imitators. Luther, as might be
expected from his revolutionary tendencies, set him-
self very distinctly against this supernatural teaching
and, in spite of all evangelical injunctions, followed
his own way; and that way was to decry law, preach
sedition and heap abuse upon the rightful represent-
atives of authority, civil and ecclesiastical.

In the second part of a work he wrote *'0n Author-
ity, etc." he expresses his views on the extent to which
men are obliged to obey. To the question, "How far
does worldly authority extend?" he repHes in this
strange manner : "But do you want to know why God
has ordained that the temporal princes should make
such shameful mistakes? I will tell you. God has

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 227

handed them over to their wicked heart and will make
an end to them." In the same work he raises the
objection: "There must be an authority even among
Christians," and his answer is, ''Among Christians
there ought not to be and there cannot be any authority.
But they are all at the same time subject one to
another."

This v/as a pet doctrine of Luther and while its
wicked teaching is most untenable and anarchical, it
need not surprise any one who is in the least familiar
with his revolutionary tendencies. It was characteristic
of hrm to "despise dominion and blaspheme majesty"
and, as he constantly set himself against all law, re-
straint and ordinance, he could not consistently do
otherwise than declare that "there ought not to be and
there cannot be any authority." What dire results this
wicked teaching brought to Church and State ever since
it was first announced would require volumes to record.

This open profession of the doctrine of license led
Luther to exemplify it in his own behavior. Every
opportunity was seized upon to show his contempt for
dominion. He took a special delight in holding up the
representatives of authority to ridicule and in exposing
their faults, real or imaginary, in the most glaring
colors till disregard for dominion gradually spread all
over the country. Hardly a ruler of the period escaped
his railing speech. Unmindful of St. Paul's wise advice
"not to be litigious but gentle," he denounced the
reigning Emperor as a "tyrant" and called him "a
mortal sack of worms." "Here," he says, "you see
how the poor mortal sack of worms (Madensack), the
Emperor, who is not sure of his life for a moment,
shamelessly boasts that he is the true, supreme pro-
tector of the Christian faith." (Erlanger Ausgabe
XXIV, 210.) In a like spirit of hatred and opposition
he declared that the princes were "mad, fooHsh, sense-
less, raving, frantic lunatics." In his work on
"Authority, etc.," he says : "You must know that from
the beginning of the world a wise prince is a rare bird,
and still more so a pious prince; they are generally

228 The Facts About Luther

the greatest fools or the worst rascals on earth;
therefore, as regards them we may always look out
for the worst and expect little good from them.'*
Addressing the princes, he says, "People cannot, people
will not, put up with your tyranny and caprice for any
length of time." In another work written in 1524,
entitled, ''Two Imperial, Inconsistent and Disgusting
Orders concerning Luther/' the antagonism of the dis-
gruntled "Evangelist" against the princes is expressed
in extremest bitterness. He says : 'Trom the bottom
of my heart I bewail such a state of things in the
hearing of all pious Christians, that like me they may
bear with pity such crazy, stupid, furious, mad fools
. . . May God deliver us from them, and out of mercy
give us other rulers. Amen.

It is evident from the few quotations given above
that Luther believed in freedom of speech, which is a
very good thing under approved conditions, but the use
he made of it was little calculated to foster in the
people respect for authority and willingness to obey
it. The fact is that his wholesale denunciations of the
Emperor and the other rulers of the period, and his
unsparing criticisms of existing conditions, tended to
sow the seeds of sedition among the discontented ele-
ments of society, to promote a revolutionary tendency
and to arouse into activity the dormant prejudices and
passions of the lower orders against their rulers.

The inflammatory power of the violent expressions
found in his writings and addresses should never have
been used unless he intended to inaugurate a rising of
the masses to destroy all order and government. Eras-
mus, speaking of the crowds who assembled to hear
Luther and his preachers expound their new-fangled
notions of Christian liberty, says : *T saw them coming
from these sermons with threatening looks, and eyes
darting fire, as men carried beyond themselves by the
fiery discourses to which they had just listened. These
followers of the Gospel are even ready for a conflict
of some kind, whether with polemical or material
weapons, it matters little." (Alzog. Vol. Ill, pp. 219,

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 229

222.) Berzold, a non-Catholic, in his history of the
German Reformation issued in 1890, referring to
Luther's violent productions, says: ''He should never
have written in such a way had he not already made
up his mind to act as leader of a Revolution. That he
should have expected the German nation of those days
to listen to such passionate language from the mouth
of its 'Evangelist' and 'EHas' without being carried
beyond the bounds of law and order, was a naivete
only to be explained by his ignorance of the world and
his exclusive attention to religious interests." Con-
cerning the effects of such language upon the people,
the same historian wrote as late as 1908: "How else
but in a material sense was the plain man to interpret
Luther's proclamation of Christian freedom and his
extravagant strictures on the parsons and nobles ?"

The evil consequence of holding up the rulers of the
nation to ridicule and denouncing them as "tyrants"
and "persecutors" did not entirely escape Luther's own
attention. As early as 1522, in his "Advice to all
Christians, etc.," he writes : "It seems as if a rebellion
is going to break out . . . and the whole clerical body
are about to be murdered and driven out, if they do not
prevent it by an earnest, visible change for the better.
For the poor man, in excitement and grief on account
of the damage he has suffered in his goods, his body
and his soul, has been tried too much and has been
oppressed by them beyond all measure, in the most
perfidious manner. Henceforth he can and will no
longer put up zvith such a state of things, and, more-
over, he has ample reason to break forth with the
Hail and the club as Karsthans threatens to do'*

Luther did not have long to wait to see his fears
realized. The incentive to rebellion, which he had
long instigated and developed, was at last realized in
the tremendous outbreak of the "Peasants' War,"
which was led by fanatics of Miinzer's persuasion, in
the year 1525. The peasants were for the most part
a quiet and peaceful class, and at first had little thought
of rebelling against their rulers. They, suffered much,

230 The Facts About Luther

however, from unjust oppression which prevailed at
the time to a large extent in many parts of Germany.
They had many and great grievances to endure.
Naturally they wanted their complaints heard, their
wrongs remeaied and their request for a modicum
share of liberty conceded. A manifesto setting forth
their demands was drawn up and scattered all over the
country. There is little doubt that most of what they
claimed was founded in strict justice and might easily
have been granted by the rulers. Veeder says: "Tiiat
the ideals and demands of the peasants were substan-
tially just is conceded by practically every modern
writer of the period and is tacitly confessed by sub-
sequent legislation in Germany, which has virtually
conceded every one of their demands and more."

liie proposals of the peasants published in the
"Twelve Articles" of the ''Manifesto" give unmis-
takable proofs of the religious character of their
demands of justice. Luther tells us that what pleased
him best in the Peasants' Articles was their "readiness
to be guided by clear, plain, undeniable passages of
Scripture." It was believed by those who drew up the
petition for redress that all the claims, even those
relating to the tithes, to hunting, fishing, forest rights,
etc., could be proved from Holy Scripture. The
peasants were willing to be advised, but they said they
would not abandon their claims unless they were
refuted "with clear, manifest, undeniable texts of
Scripture." The First Article demanded liberty to
preach the Gospel and the right of congregations to
elect and depose their parish priests. The Third Article
declared : "There are to be no serfs, because Christ
has liberated us all.'' In presenting their requests, they
at the same time made it plain that they reserved to
themselves the right to make in the future such addi-
tional demands as they might come to recognize as
being in accordance with Holy Scripture. Thus a
higher warrant was bestowed upon the complaints and
demands concerning secular and material matters. The
preaching of the "new gospel" supervened in addition
to the consideration of the oppression of the peasantry.

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 331

To all the petitions for a more equitable adjustment
of the lamentable conditions existing among the
common people, most of the rulers turned a deaf ear.
Unfortunately, instead of listening patiently and sym-
pathetically to the well-grounded complaints of their
subjects, the princes not only refused to consider the
demands made on them and afford relief, but they
added insult to injury by treating them with the utmost
harshness and severest cruelty. A strong desire for
retaliation now filled the minds of the aggrieved and
despised peasants. Fancying they were helping the
new gospel, they thought it lawful to rise against those
masters who had been represented to them as tyrants
and persecutors of the Word of God. Forthwith the
standard of revolt was everywhere raised and on it was
inscribed the talismanic word — Liberty.

At the breaking out of the rebellion, when the greater
part of Germany was thrown into arms, fierce fanati-
cism and wild extravagance dominated the minds and
spirits of the insurgents. In the disastrous conflict the
heavy oppression and the many disabilities under which
the masses had labored for years were for the most
part entirely forgotten, and, in their place, was substi-
tuted an uncontrollable passion for complete liberty
as outlined in Luther's "gospel of freedom" under the
mistaken approbation found in biblical passages for
equality among the classes and a juster distribution
of property. Luther was the ''man of the Evangel"
and on him the eyes of the great number of the peasants
were directed when the rising unfortunately took place.
The new preaching, proclaimed by word of mouth and
in writings, readily fostered among the excited masses
the most fantastic and impossible notions of a society
in which they were to be in complete and undisputed
control. The passions of the multitude were stirred
up to the highest pitch. They purposed to overthrow
the whole political and social structure as- it then
existed. They wanted to efface all inequalities in
property, employment and rank. In the new social
order they aimed to establish ''there were to be no

232 The Facts About Luther

rulers or subjects, no rich or poor, no cities or com-
merce, but all should live in primitive simplicity and
perfect equality."

The fanatical ministers, who harangued the peasants
and urged them on to execute their extravagant and
impractical scheme, made bold to tell their dupes ''that
it was God's will they should everywhere kill and
destroy without mercy until all the mighty were laid
low and the promised Kingdom of God established."
Miinzer, who led the insurgent troops, and all his
radical associates, according to McGiff ert and hundreds
of other non-Catholic authors, "appealed to Luther's
gospel and quoted his writings in support of their
program. They called themselves his followers and
declared it their purpose to put his principles into
practice. And whatever was true of the leaders, by
the great mass of the peasants themselves it was
doubtless honestly believed that Luther was with
them and they could count on his sympathy and
support." (McGiffert p. 252.)

The unrest, brought about by the preaching of the
apostasy, came quickly to a head and the catastrophe
foreseen filled all with alarm. The rising spread terror
on all sides as the insurgents attempted to revenge
their wrongs by bloodshed. The passions of the crowd
were thoroughly aroused and the flames of insurrection
were kindled all over the country.

At this time Luther, who was thoroughly alarmed,
wrote a pamphlet with the purpose of keeping the
insurgents within limits. In this work entitled, ''An
Exhortation to Peace/' he rrges the peasants to keep
quiet and renounce all desire for revenge, and appeals
to the rulers to show a modicum of mercy and to grant
at least some few measures of relief. His endeavor
at this time to stop the full outbreak o^ the revolution
was no doubt sincere ; but his interposition in favor of
order came too late and lost all its force by reason
of his own blundering in the use of language which
tended not to check, but to develop most effectively the
growth and advancement of the revolutionary spirit.

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 333

"Had Luther," observes Grisar, ''been endowed with
a clear perception of the position of affairs, and seen
the utter uselessness of any attempt merely to stem
the movement, he would not at this critical juncture
have still further irritated the rebels by the attacks
upon the gentry, into which he allowed himself to
break out and which were at once taken advantage of."

Luther's "Exhortation to Peace" consists of two
parts, one addressed to the princes, the other to the
peasants. In the first part of this work, he throws
once more the blame on the princes and then cries
out: ''Your government consists in nothing else but
fleecing and oppressing the poor common people in
order to support your own magnificence and arrogance
till they neither can nor will endure it. The sword is
at your throat ; you think you sit fast in the saddle
and that it will be impossible to overthrow you. But
you will find that your self-confidence and obstinacy
will be the breaking of your necks." "You are bringing
it upon yourselves and wish to get your heads broken.
There is no use in any further warning or admonish-
ing." "God has so ordained it that your furious raging
neither can nor shall any longer be endured. You must
become different and give way to the word of God;
if you refuse to do it willingly, then you will be forced
to do it by violence and riot. If the peasants do not
accomplish it, others must."

In the second part of the same work he addresses the
peasant- and exhorts them not only to suffer in a
Christian manner, but to be ready to endure even per-
secution and oppression willingly. This special pleading
came with strange grace from one who was instru-
mental in raising the call to arms and, as might be
expected, its eff'ect was destroyed by fresh attacks
against the ruling classes. He says, for instance: ii
they, the Lords and Princes, "forbid the preaching of
the gospel and oppress the people so unbearingly, then
they deserve that God should cast them down from
their thrones, as they sin mightily against God and
man, nor have they any excuse." Luther fancies he

234: The Facts About Luther

already sees the hands stretched out to execute the
sentence and concludes his address by saying to the
princes : "Tyrants seldom die in their beds ; as a rule
they perish by a bloody death. Since it is certain that
you govern tyrannically and savagely, forbidding the
preaching of the gospel, and fleecing and oppressing
the people, there is no comfort or hope for you, but
to perish as those Hke you have perished."

The foregoing is the merest summary of Luther's
pamphlet On Peace. From the few quotations we
have furnished it is clear that his ill-timed and impru-
dent language was little calculated to inspire confidence
and promote the interests of peace between the two
parties who were at daggers' points. Whilst we beHeve
that he desired when the outbreak was begun that all
should desist from violence and preserve order, yet
we cannot forget that his excitement and his anxiety
to advance the interests of his special gospel interpre-
tation so overcame him as to induce him to use lan-
guage in denunciation of the injustice of the princes
which could not fail to bring into fullest play the
aroused passions of the oppressed and sorely tried
peasants. The ideas of gospel freedom, which he set
forth in such inflammatory terms, stuck too fast in their
memory and imagination to be displaced by any
later pronouncements, especially when these were
coupled with fresh attacks against their oppressors.
Henceforth no appeals to keep order and observe law
were of use to extinguish the fire already enkindled
in their souls. All they thought of now was what
pleased them in Luther's denunciations of their wrongs,
and, hence, all advice to have nothing to do with
rebellion or revolution was spurned and contemned.

Luther is now thoroughly vexed. He is angered
because the common people, whom he felt he owned
body and soul, were no longer willing in his changed
mood to listen to his advice and submit to his further
dictation. To his mind such conduct in any man or
any body of men was an unpardonable crime. But
he had instilled into their minds his new "biblical"

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 235

ideas of freedom, and, like the docile disciples they
proved themselves to be for a time, they considered
his teachings favorable to their movement, affording
them "ample reason to break forth with the flail and
the club." To abandon these ideas now that they
were cognizant of his shifting position was a course
they were altogether unwilling to pursue. He had
taught them to use their own judgment in the inter-
pretation of the Bible and they felt they were entirely
within their rights when they differed from him and
set up a view of their own, one which especially
agreed with their leanings and tendencies. This they
would not relinquish at his command. They refused
to heed his appeal to lay down their arms. Up to this
time Luther had made common cause with the peas-
ants, but now that they claimed a right to think for
themselves and to frame doctrines of their own mak-
ing, gaining an evil name for his gospel because of
the frightful atrocities everywhere perpetrated in its
name, he forthwith changed his attitude towards them
and immediately presented himself in a new aspect,
that of a cruel and relentless oppressor.

Imagining that the warlike disturbances which pre-
vailed on all sides were the work of the devil, Luther
thought it high time, as he considered himself his
chief foe, to oppose his Satanic Majesty and prevent
him from inflicting further injury on himself and com-
promising still more the cause of his evangel. "If,"
he says, "the devil devoured him in the struggle the
result would be a belly cramp." Whilst his excitement
increases as he sees his influence in the ranks of the
peasants decline (and his fancies at the time concern-
ing "signs in the heavens and wonders on the earth"
"foreboding no good," grow), sanguinary encounters
were the order of the day. The insurrectionary party
spread rapidly over Swabia, the Rhine provinces, Fran-
conia, Thuringia and even approached his own Saxony.
Everything was upside down. Luther became thor-
oughly alarmed. What he saw and heard of the
atrocities in the insurgent districts filled him with fear

236 The Facts About Luther

and dread. He "now asked himself," says Grisar,
"what the new evangel could win supposing the popu-
lace gained the upper hand, and, also how the rulers
who had hitherto protected his cause would fare in
the event of the rebels being successful in the Saxon
Electorate and at Wittenberg." Passionate rage, not
discriminating justice, decided his course of action.
Assuming the role of a cruel and relentless oppressor,
he treacherously turns upon the poor peasants as if
they were not his own spiritual progeny whom he led
into the trap, and loudly clamors for the Princes to
turn out in force to exterminate all who had taken up
the sword against them. In the fury of his wrath
at the horrors of the armed rebellion, he seemed to
forget that he had ever been the relentless enemy of the
princes, that he had incessantly rebuked them for their
tyranny and that he had brazenly denounced them as
"the greatest fools and the worst rascals on earth."
So bitter was his hostility towards the very people
whom, as Osiander, the non-Catholic historian, says,
he "flattered and caressed while they were content with
attacking the bishops and the clergy," that he now
calls upon the rulers, regardless of his former antipathy
toward them, to act in the most vigorous and relentless
manner for their complete suppression and extermina-
tion. Thus, from the rebels, whose cause he once
espoused and encouraged, he turns in basest perfidy
and meanest sycophancy to ally himself entirely with
their oppressors.

At this juncture he wrote a terrible tract entitled,
*' Against the Murderous and Rapacious Hordes of the
Peasants" to urge the civil authorities to crush the
revolution. This tract was issued about May 4, 1525.
In a copy preserved at the British Museum, London,
we find these heartless words : "Pure deviltry is urging
on the peasants ; they rob and rage and behave like
mad dogs." "Therefore let all who are able, mow them
down, slaughter and stab them, openly or in secret, and
remember that there is nothing more poisonous,
noxious and utterly devilish than a rebel. You must

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 28 'i

kill him as you would a mad dog; if you do not fall
upon him, he will fall upon you and the whole land."

In this tract Luther claims that the peasants are
not fighting for his new teaching, nor serving the
evangel. "They,'^ he says, "serve the devil under the
appearance of the evangel ... I believe that the devil
feels the approach of the Last Day and therefore has
recourse to such unheard of trickery . . . Behold what
a powerful prince the devil is, how he holds the world
in his hands, and can knead it as he pleases." '1 think
there is not a single devil now left in Hell, but they
have all gone into the peasants. The raging is exceed-
ingly great and beyond all measure."

He therefore calls upon the princes to exert their
authority with all their might. "Whatever peasants,"
he says, "are killed in the fray, are lost body and soul
and are the devil's own for all eternity. The authori-
ties must resolve to chastise and slay so long as they
can raise a finger: Thou, O God, must judge and act.
It may be that whoever is killed on the side of the
authorities is really a martyr in God's cause. A happier
death no man could die. The present time is so strange
that a prince can gain Heaven by spilling blood easier
than another person can by praying."

Luther does not forget to exhort the evangelically-
minded rulers to remember to offer the "mad peasants,"
even at the last, "just and reasonable terms, but where
this is of no avail to have recourse at once to the
sword." Before this, however, he says: "I will not
forbid such rulers as are able to chastise and slay the
peasants without previously offering them terms,
although it is not according to the Gospel."

"He is not opposed to indulgence being shown those
who have been led astray. He recommends that the
many "pious-folk" who, against their will, were com-
pelled to join the diabolical league, should be spared.
At the same time, however, he declares, that they, like
the others, are "going to the devil . . . For a pious
Christian ought to be willing to endure a hundred
deaths rather than yield one hair's breadth to the cause

238 The Facts About Luther

of the peasants." "It has been said," Grisar further
remarks, "it was for the purpose of hberating those
who had been compelled to join the insurgents, that he
admonished the princes in such strong terms, even
promising them heaven as the reward for their
shedding of blood, and that the overthrow of the
revolt by every possible means was, though in this
sense only, 'for Luther a real work of charity.' " This,
however, is incorrect, for he does not speak of saving
and sparing those who had been led astray until after
the passage where he says that the princes might gain
heaven by the shedding of blood ; nor is there any inner
connection between the passages; he simply says:
'There is still one matter to which the authorities might
well give attention. Even had they no other cause for
whetting their sword against the peasants this (the
saving of those who had been led astray) would be
more than sufficient reason.' After the appeal for
mercy towards those Vv^ho had been forced to fight,
there follows the cry : 'Let whoever is able help in the
slaughter; should you die in the struggle, you could
not have a more blessed death.' He concludes with
Romans xiii, 4, concerning the authorities ; "who bear
not the sword in vain, avengers to execute wrath upon
him that doth evil."

"While his indignant pen stormed over this murder-
ous paper, Luther had been thinking with terror of the
consequences of the bloody contest, and of the likeli-
hood of the peasants coming off victorious. He writes :
"We know not v/hether God may not intend to prelude
the Last Day, which CLinnot be far distant, by allowing
the devil to destroy all order and government, and to
reduce the world to a scene of desolation, so that Satan
may obtain the 'Kingdom of this world.' "

Such is the brief summaiy Grisar makes of this
tract ''Against the Murderous and Rapacious Hordes
of Peasants/* which was written to hound on the
authorities to slay in cold blood their misguided sub-
jects and "choke them like mad dogs."

All along, from the time this tract was first issued

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 239

till the present, every non-Catholic writer of note has
been loud in denouncing and condemning its passionate
tone and cruel teaching. Among the latest in our own
day we present the following estimates. Lindsay, an
ardent supporter of the Reformer, in 1908 says: ''In
this terrible pamphlet Luther hounded on the princes
to crush the rising. When all is said that can.jeason-
ably be said in explanation of his action, we cannot
I help feeling that the language of this pamphlet is an
/ ineffaceable stain on Luther, which no extenuating

L circumstances can wipe out. It remains the greatest
blot on his life and jcareer. j (Lindsay's Luther, p.
186.) McGiffert, writing in 1912, says: "The tract
seemed over-harsh and cruel even to many of his
friends." (McGiffert, p. 256.) Vedder, writing in
1914, says: "The passionate violence and bitterness
of this pamphlet constitutes to this day an ineradicable
blot on the name and the fame of Luther, for which
his admirers attempt various lame apologies, but no
defense. His conduct is the more condemnable when
we recollect that he was the son of a peasant, that his
sympathies should naturally have been with the class
from which he had risen, and that in thus taking
w^ithout reservation the side of the princes, and becom-
ing more violent in words than they were in deed, he
was acting the renegade. But no stones should be
cast at him to-day by those men who have come up
from the lower ranks, and obtained professional stand-
ing of business eminence and now for hire take the
side of corporate Avealth and special interests, against
the rights and welfare of the plain people from whom
they sprang. Even Luther's friends were shocked by
this pamphlet and remonstrated with him." (Vedder,
p. 244.)

Luther's advice "to strangle" the peasants, "to stab
them secretly and openly, as they can, as one would
kill a mad dog," was fultilled to the letter. He thought
that "God gave rulers not a fox's tail, but a sword,"
and "the severity and rigor of the sword," he says, "are
as necessary for the people as eating and drinking, yes.

240 The Facts About Luther

as life itself." The time in his estimation had come
"to control the populace with a strong hand" and the
rulers must resort to ''the severity and rigor of the
sword." "Like the mules," he says, "who will not move
unless you perpetually whip them with rods, so the civil
powers must drive the common people, whip, choke,
hang, burn, behead and torture them, that they may
learn to fear the powers that be. The coarse, illiterate
Mr. Great I am — the people — must be forced, driven
as one forces and drives swine and wild animals." (El.
ed. 15, 276.) This is a most astounding utterance, but
apart from its heartlessness and lack of consideration
of the common people it shows the way Luther
preached liberty and democracy, a liberty and de-
mocracy which meant absolutism and despotism armed
with all its iron terrors in government and through
which for nearly tv/o centuries after the nations of
Europe were oppressed and tyrannized.

The insurgent bands fought under the name of the
"Christian Evangelical Army." They struck for v/hat
they had come to call "Gospel liberty," and they counted
confidently upon supernatural aid in their blind and
reckless undertaking. They had the spirit and the
courage of the boldest of warriors, but they were
unprepared for the mighty contest. They were undis-
ciplined and lacked adequate military training. As
might be expected in the circumstances, all their
attempts to overcome the thoroughly equipped forces
of the confederated princes were in vain. The struggle
went on with vigor and intensity, but defeat met the
insurgents at every turn. At last the hostile enemies
met in May 1525 on the memorable field of Franken-
hausen. Before the battle, Miinzer, the leader of the
peasants, excited his troops by an enthusiastic appeal,
and, confident of success, he promised his followers
that "he would catch all the bullets aimed at them in his
sleeves." His prediction failed in its realization. The
enemy's fire came thick and fast and so thinned the
ranks of the peasant forces that they were obliged to
flee in utter confusion. Miinzer, who fell mortally

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 241

wounded, was taken and publicly executed. In his
last hours he recanted his errors and was reconciled
to the Church of his fathers. He died exhorting the
people to hold fast to the true Catholic faith. To his
last breath he accused Luther, whose fanatical teach-
ings he unfortunately imbibed and advocated, of having
been the cause of all his misfortunes. With the death
of Miinzer the insurrection ended. The confederated
chiefs scored victory. Their triumph hushed the voice
of the poor peasants crying out for redress of
grievances in their blood. The civil powers obeyed
Luther. They wielded the sword unsparingly. They
drove the common people before them like mules ; they
whipped, choked, hung, burnt, beheaded, tortured and
slaughtered "to teach them to learn to fear the powers
that be." The result of the rebellion, thus stifled in
the blood of the common people, was a weakening of
the democratic principle and a strengthening of the
arm of power.

In the short time the rebellion lasted the peasants
were slaughtered like sheep. It is computed that more
than a hundred thousand men fell in the tield of battle.
Cities were leveled to the ground, churches, monasteries
and asylums were burned. Immense treasures of
painting, sculpture and other works of art were
destroyed. All manner of excesses were committed
and general disorder prevailed. The rights of prop-
erty, of life and of liberty were ruthlessly trampled
under foot. Wholesale massacre and sacrilege, un-
heard of in the Catholic Middle Ages, were the order
of the day whilst the v^r lasted. Had the insurgents
triumphed Germany would have relapsed into bar-
barism; Hterature, arts, poetry, morahty, faith and
authority would have been buried under the same ruin.
This was the greatest tragedy of the age and surpassed
in magnitude any ever seen in Germany before. The
dire results it occasioned did not, however, in the least
disturb Luther. When the war ended and the
Reformer saw the last of the crowd he exhorted the
princes to slaughter for carrying out his own pet prin-

Z42 The Facts About Luther

ciples, he celebrated their funeral, as Osiander tells us,
*'by marrying a nun" he helped to escape from her
convent. This reminds us of Erasmus' significant
remark, that while Luther was reveling in his nuptials,
"a. hundred thousand peasants were descending to the
tomb." The massacre of the poor victims of his
*'Evangel of freedom" was evidently a matter of little
concern to the holy (?) man, the ex-priest, Martin
Luther and his Katie Von Bora, the Adam and Eve of
the "new gospel" of concubinage.

The voice of all history proclaims that Luther was
the cause of the insurrection of the peasants and of
their subsequent massacre. Protestant writers for the
last four centuries have declared that he was the fire-
brand who alternately stirred up peasant against prince
and prince against peasant. Intelligent non-Catholic
minds of his own day denounced him as the instiga-
tor of the rising and accused him of being the cause
of all the subsequent bloodshed. Besides Osiander,
whom we quoted above, we have, for instance,
Hospinian and Simon, two careful observers of the
times who looked upon him as the disturber of the
peace and the promoter of revolution. Hospinian
says, addressing Luther: "It is you who excited the
peasants to revolt." Simon asserts the same thing:
*'We leave to Lutherans to ponder over the outlandish
and sanguinary factions which they excited some years
ago m order to introduce and recommend their doc-
trines." Ulrich Zasius, the jurist, who at one time
had been inclined to favor Luther, wrote in the year
of the revolt to his friend Amerbach as follows:
"Luther, the destroyer of peace, the most pernicious of
men, has plunged the whole of Germany into such
madness, that we now consider ourselves lucky if we
are not slain on the spot." Cochlaeus, estimating the
number of the slaughtered peasants at one hundred and
fifty thousand, does not exaggerate when he declares
that "on the day of Judgment, Miinzer and his peasants
will cry out before God and His angels, 'Vengeance on
Luther.' " Erasmus, who was closely observing Luther,

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 243

reproached him with having fomented the rebellion
"by his libels against the monks and shaven crowns."
When Luther wrote that "he believed there was not a
single devil now left in hell, but that they had all gone
into the peasants," and that a prince ''now might
better earn heaven by bloodshed than by prayer,"
Erasmus promptly ansv/ered him in these memorable
words : "We are now reaping the fruit of your spirit.
You do not acknowledge the rebels, but they acknowl-
edge you, and it is well known that many who boast
of the name of the evangel have been instigators of
the horrible revolt. It is true you have attempted in
your grim booklet against the peasants to allay this
suspicion, but nevertheless you cannot dispel the
general conviction that this mischief was caused by
the books you sent forth against the monks and
bishops, in favor of evangelical freedom, and against
the tyrants, more especially by those written in
German." (Hyperaspistes, Opp. p. 1032.)

As time went on numerous authors other than
Luther's contemporaries wrote on the important topic,
and they, cognizant of all the testimony in the case,
proclaimed in the interests of truth the Reformer's
undoubted agency in bringing about the ''Peasants'
War." Plank, an eminent Protestant writer and
defender of Luther, says : "It is but too evident that
this revolution was prepared by the reform agitations,
and that by such agitations the minds of the people
were deluded by such a swindle which otherwise would
not have inflamed so many minds at once." (Plank,
Entstch. Des Prob. Lehb.) Karl Hagen, an eminent
Protestant historian, writes : "Even Luther ... in his
earlier writings, contributed to foster the rebellious
feeling among the people; for once he actually incited
the German nation to bathe itself in the blood of the
Papists, and he declared that they would do a
thing agreeable to God, who would make away
with the Bishops, destroy Churches and Convents!
He 'called... the princes... impious, miserable
rascals... silly fools,' whose tyranny and caprice

244 The Facts About Lut h er

people neither could, nor would put up with for any
length of time. ,Was it surprising that this judgment
of the Reformer concerning the reigning powers
remained uppermost in the minds of his readers, and
thaj: on the other hand they doubted the correctness of
his doctrine of unconditional obedience?" (K. Hagen,
Deutsche Geschichte, etc. pp. 183-184.) Lindsay, in
his ''Luther and the German Reformation," page 169,
says: ''When we consider the causes w^hich produced
the Peasants' War, it must be acknowledged that there
w^as an intimate connection between that disastrous
outburst and Luther's message to the German people."
McGiffert, whilst he does not wish to hold his hero
responsible for the tremendous uprising of 1525, never-
theless makes the following significant admission on
page 250: "His (Luther's) attacks upon many features
of the existing order, his criticisms of the growing
luxury of the wealthier classes, his denunciation of
the rapacity and greed of great commercial magnates
and of the tyranny and corruption of rulers both civil
and ecclesiastical, all tended to inflame the populace
and spread impatience and discontent. His Gospel of
Christian liberty also had its effect." Vedder, on page
242 of his work on Luther, says: The peasants
"became conscious that they had rights, that they might
rise, and that their inherited condition was a hindrance
to them. At this time Luther came preaching that the
Pope was a tyrant, imposing unjust, useless, even
injurious laws upon the people ; that the bishops were
doing the same thing ; and that the rulers, in addition
to tiie wrongs that they themselves inflicted, were pro-
tecting and upholding the Pope and the bishops. Those
among the poorer classes who believed Luther came to
feel that the rulers were their enemies and God's
enemies. That they had this feeling is proved by their
conduct, by their publications and the testimony of all.
That Luther's teaching helped to produce and intensify
it is equally clear."

But, why multiply evidence to prove our contention ?
J'he most conclusive argument is furnished by Luther

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 246

himself who accepted the responsibility for the wide
slaughter of the peasants. On one occasion in later
years, looking back upon the events of the unhappy
rising, he declared that he was completely at ease con-
cerning the advice he had given to the authorities
against the peasants, in spite of the sanguinary results.
*Treachers," he says, in his usual drastic mode of
expression, "are the biggest murderers about, for they
admonish the authorities to fulfil their duty and to
punish the wicked. I, Martin Luther, slew all the
peasants in the rebellion, for I said they should be slain ;
all their blood is upon my head. But," he blas-
phemously added, "I put it upon the Lord God by
whose command I spoke." Thus his usual persuasion,
viz., that he was God's instrument, here again is made
use of.

Luther's cruel pamphlet against the "murderous
peasants" caused such an amount of criticism and
complaint among his friends and followers that he
thought himself called upon to answer "the wise-acres
who wished to teach him how he should write" and
to vindicate all he advocated in his previous publica-
tions. This he did in an "open letter," which he is-
sued whei. the revolt was practically suppressed and
peace was partially assured. A careful perusal of
this work, which was written not under pressure of
excitement, but in cold blood and after due deliberation,
shows that he recants nothing of what he taught before,
but brazenly repeats the offense and in spite of the
scandal caused even takes pleasure in using stronger
language than any he had already availed himself of.
In his endeavor to justify himself he boldly maintains
that it was nuite right for him to say, "that everybody
ought to strike into the peasants, strangle them, stab
them by stealth or openly as they can, as one would kill
a mad dog." This is his deliberate opinion concerning
his former work as he clearly declares in the fol-
lowing passage: "Therefore my little book against
the peasants is quite in the right and shall remain so,
even if all the world were to be scandalized at it."

246 The Facts About Luther

(Erlanger Ausgabe, XXIV, 299.) "Here, as in many
other places, where Luther has to defend his standpoint
against attack," KostHn, a non-Catholic, says of this
writing, "he draws the reins tighter instead of easing
them. Here he no longer sees fit to say even one
word in behalf of the peasants, notwithstanding the
real grievances which had caused the rising."

It was characteristic of Luther never to admit that
he was in the wrong. He says of himself: *To the
best of my judgment, there is neither Emperor, king
nor devil to whom I would yield : no, I would not yield
even to the whole world."

His dislike for the peasants on account of their
disagreement with his general views was deep rooted
and on every available occasion he manifested this
feeling in vilest denunciation. In speech and writ-
ing, he poured forth bitterest words of anger against
them. *'A peasant is a hog," he says in 1532, "for
when a hog is slaughtered it is dead, and in the same
way the peasant does not think about the next life,
for otherwise he would behave very differently."
(Schlaginhaufen, "Aufzeichnungen" p. 118,) At the
same period he says : "The peasant remains a boor,
do what you will" ; "they have," so he remarks,
"their mouth, nose, eyes and everything else in the
wrong place." "I believe that the devil does not mind
the peasants" ; he "despises them as he does leaden
pennies" ; he thinks "he can easily manage to secure
them for himself, as they will assuredly be claimed
by no one." (Cordatus, "Tagebuch," p. 127.) "A
peasant who is a Christian is like a wooden poker.*'
(Cordatus, Ibid. p. 131.) To one who was about to
marry he wrote: "My Katie sends you this friendly
warning, to beware of marrying a country lass, for
they are rude and proud, cannot get on well with their
husbands and know neither how to cook nor to brew."
( Brief e, ed De Wette.)

"The peasants as well as the nobles throughout the
country," he complains in 1533, in a letter to Spalatin,
"have entered into a conspiracy against the evangel.

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 247

though they make use of the liberty of the gospel in
the most outrageous manner. It is not surprising that
the Papists oppose us. God will be our Judge in this
matter! Oh, the awful ingratitude of our age, we
can only hope and pray for the speedy coming of our
Lord and Saviour (the Last Day)." ( Brief wechsel, 9,

P- 333-)

The violent invective which Luther hurled against
the "murderous peasants*' in the year 1525 had a last-
ing and disastrous effect, not only on the Reformation,
but on the Reformer himself. All fair-minded Protes-
tant historians, writing of this period, acknowledge
that his former popularity and his influence over the
crowd were gone. Up to this he seemed to have the
greater number of the discontented behind him, but
now that his power over them was weakened, owing
to his fickle and vacillating nature, he was obliged (in
the presence of his changing tactics) more and more
to seek the assistance necessary to maintain his
preachments in the camp of the princes. His shift-
ing from the peasants to the authorities caused no
small amount of adverse criticism and in consequence
he was denounced and even branded as a "hypocrite"
and "slave of princes" by many of the discontented.
All were agciinst him and some even, as he says himself,
^'threatened him with death." ''The springtime of the
Reformation was over," says Hausrath. "Luther no
longer passed from one triumph to another as he had
during the first seven years of his career. He himself
says : 'Had not the revolted peasants fouled the water
for my fishing, things would look very different for
the Papacy.' The hope to overthrow completely the
Roman rule in Germany by means of a united, over-
whelmingly powerful, popular movement had become
a mere dream." (Hausrath, "Luther's Leben," 2, p.
62.)

Luther was fully aware of the disastrous conse-
quences of his evil teachings. He recognized that the
common people, as a result of his doctrines, lost many
rights and privileges, which they had previously

248 The Facts About Luther

enjoyed, and that they were no longer disposed to look
upon him as a leader worthy of confidence and support.
The crowds that heretofore followed him in rebellion
were gradually decreasing in numbers and there were
grave fears that the safety and progress of his pet
schemes were in danger of complete collapse. To
preserve and keep his evangel in prominence was the
problem that confronted him. It called for a speedy
and practical solution. As he was a consummate poH-
tician, ever ready to sacrifice any principle for political
expediency, he had no difficulty in rising to the
emergency. Having abandoned the people who he
had at one time believed, had the right of armed
resistance to authority, he sees now the need he has
in his shaky position of the strong arm of the secular
power. Putting aside all his innermost convictions
regarding an independent Church free from secular
control, he now in cowardice and weakness determines
to place his whole reliance for the propagation of his
evangel on the princes he once denounced and con-
demned. This vacillating character, who once re-
pudiated all authority in religion, and rejected that
of Pope and Emperor, now falls back on it as em-
bodied in the princes of the period. Under the pres-
sure of circumstances and in spite of his better
judgment, he accepted Erastianism as a practical
solution of a difficult problem and forthwith inaugu-
rated the typical State-Church, a Church which soon
after became the tool and instrument of civil power
and which eventually was absorbed by it. *The State,"
Grisar says, ''had stood sponsor to the new faith on
its first appearance, and, whether in Luther's interest
or in its own, the State continued to intervene in
matters pertaining to the Church. This interweaving
of poHtics with religion failed to insure to the new
Church the friendly assistance of the State but soon
brought it into a position of entire subservience in
spite of the protests of the originators of the innova-
tions." (Grisar III, p. 29.) "The Catholic Church"
observes Fr. Johnston, "had preferred to lose a

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 249

nation — England — rather than abandon her principles :
Luther won over the larger part of his nation — Germany
— by abandoning his own principles."

As Melanchthon had foreseen, the most insupportable
tyranny took the place of the promised freedom of faith
and conscience in consequence of state absorption of
Church interests. According to the execrable maxim
of the Lutheran creed, *'Cujus regio, ejus religio,"
which was formally enunciated by the rulers and theo-
logians of that church assembled at Passau soon after
Luther's death and which gained wide acceptance,
the religion of each province depended on the caprice
of its reigning prince. '*He that owns the country
owns the Church, and he that makes your laws for you
has a right to make your religion for you." There
never was a theory more odious, both in the light of
civil and of religious liberty. If the prince chose to
go over to the Reformers, his subjects had to go with
him. In one instance, that of Pfalz, the religion of
the people was changed arbitrarily four times within
eighty years by reason of this principle. Catholic
worship was forbidden, Catholic priests were banished,
and if any resisted the new order of things, he was
robbed of his goods, expelled from the land, or subdued
by imprisonment, hunger, tortures and threats of death.
In some cases the territories of Catholic rulers were
forcibly seized and Protestantized by Protestant
princes. Dukedoms and kingdoms became "Lutheran,"
or "Sacramentarian," or "Calvinistic," or adopted some
other phase of Protestantism, according to the dictates
of the prince or duke or king who ruled them. This
is simply a historical fact and cannot be disproved.

It is also undeniable that, with few exceptions, the
almost countless Protestant "confessions" and "decla-
rations of belief" of the sixteenth century were
submitted to the>approval of secular rulers and enforced
by them. This is the fact as regards the Augsburg
Confession, which is the fundamental declaration of
belief of the Lutherans ; the Heidelberg Catechism,
the most generally accepted form.ula of belief of the

250 The Facts About Luther

"Sacramentarians" "or followers of Zwingle and
Calvin" or, as they style themselves, the "Reformed"
churches of France, Switzerland, Germany and Hol-
land, and it is notoriously true with regard to the
"Thirty-nine Articles" of the ''Established Church of
England."

Where the Reformers dared attempt it, as in
Switzerland, they fused the secular and spiritual
authority together and established a theocracy. Where
they dared not attempt this, they placed themselves
sycophantly at the feet of secular rulers as in England
and Prussia.

According to the Reformers, the individual was the
sole and all-sufficient judge in religious matters,
amenable to no authority and quite competent to pass
upon the law of God, to interpret and expound it, to
admit or reject portions of it, according as his "reason"
should dictate. The leaders, it is true, confined this
principle to revelation. But more logical minds soon
extended it to other matters, and thus ambitious secular
rulers whose hearts were set on self-aggrandizement
and the extension of their royal prerogatives, following
the example of the ''Reformers," set up their own
private judgment as the supreme tribunal for the
determination of all matters, ecclesiastical or political,
within their respective domains. The "Reformers"
practically confined the so-called right of private judg-
ment each one to himself and his followers, but, soon,
too, they virtually surrendered it to the secular princes
who protected them, with the result that there was
instituted a policy which, as systematized and further
carried out later on, culminated in the almost entire
demolition of the institutions of constitutional govern-
ment and of the safeguards of civil liberty in all
Protestant countries and in most of the Catholic centres
of Europe during the sixteenth century, the seventeenth
and far on into the eighteenth. One of the most famous
historians of modern times, Guizot, once prime minister
of France, referring to this, says, in his Lectures on
Civilization in Modern Europe: ''The Emancipation

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 251

(!) of the human mind (by the 'Reformation') and
absolute monarchy triumphed simultaneously in
Europe." Reserving the word "emancipation," Guizot's
startling statement of the fact is true.

During the one hundred and fifty years that followed
the so-called Reformation, Europe went back as
regards civil liberty almost to the absolutism of Caesar
Augustus and his successors. All who have but glanced
at the political history of Europe in the sixteenth cen-
tury, and later on, must know that the ancient liberties
of the people were crushed and temporal rulers were
virtual despots. Passing over England with its
tyrannical sovereigns, its alternately sycophantic and
rebellious Parliaments, its revolutions and restora-
tions, it is only necessary to cite Protestant Prussia,
Denmark and Sweden. Nor does the fact that the
statement applies also to France and Spain weaken in
the least the force of our argument. Their peoples
were Catholic ; in Spain exclusively so, in France by a
vast majority. Their rulers were professedly Catholics,
but quickly learning the lessons of the Reformers they
were anything but Catholic in their political policy,
and in their actions as regards both Church and State
they were behind no other temporal sovereigns of the
period in extending their royal prerogatives and
breaking down all the ancient guarantees of constitu-
tional liberty in their respective dominions, despite
the remonstrances and protests of successive Sovereign
Pontiiis of the Church. In belief they were Catholics;
in the exercise of political power they acted according
to their own imperial "private judgment" defying alike
the authority of constitutional civil law and that of the
wise and sane teachings and rulings of the Church of
God. As notable examples you will recall Francis I.
of France, Charles V. of Spain, Prussia and the
Netherlands — Catholics in belief, but Protestants ia
their political policy. Then came Louis XIV. of
France whose famous dictum, *'I am the State," was
carried out by him to a despotic extent with regard
also to ecclesiastical affairs. Albert of Brandenberg,

Z5Z The Facts About Luther

who was called by his contemporaries "the Attila of
the Reformation," pursued the same tyrannical course.
He laid the foundation for the present kingdom of
Prussia by sacrilegious plunderings and invasions, and
established a despotism which has descended as a
part of his patrimony to his successors on the throne
of that country. In no region in Europe has despotism
been so thoroughly systematized as to Church and
State as in Prussia.

"Thus, from the very outset of the Reformation

onwards, that movement," says a writer in the Am.
CatJi. Quarterly Reznew, "has not promoted civil liber-
ty, but has retarded its progress. It taught no true prin-
ciple respecting human rights and civil institutions that
was not previously known and taught by the Catholic
Church, her doctors and theologians, long years ago.
It introduced principles of disorder and confusion,
which inevitably led to anarchy on the one hand and
tyranny on the other."

No other result could be expected. In its funda-
mental principle the Reformation denied authority,
encouraged individualism, and promoted resistance to
established government. When this centrifugal prin-
ciple brought in insubordination, uprisings and popular
revolts, the Reformers went to the other extreme and
justified absolutism and the use of despotic means in
the government of the people. So Protestantism, while
tending inevitably to destroy popular rights, at the
same time strengthened the arbitrary rule of the civil
powers.

"Wherever," Abp. Spalding observes, "the Refor-
mation had penetrated and had uplifted its 'fiery cross,'
protracted civil wars had everywhere marked its prog-
ress and blood shed by brother armed against brother
in fratricidal strife had everywhere stained the soil of
Europe. Its career might have been traced by the
dismantled or burning churches, the ruined monasteries
and the smoking libraries, which it usually left behind
it — the dismal trophies of its victory over the old
religion. It had unsettled society, and it threatened

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 253

the change or destruction of existing dynasties. No
government any longer rested on a secure foundation ;
what was strong to-day might be tottering to its fall
to-morrow. And the. new political order, which was
to rise on the ruins of the old, however flattering soever
to popular liberty were its promises, did not really
result, at least in the vast majority of cases, in any
greater extension of popular freedom."

"The political tendency was, rather on the contrary,
in the opposite direction. To strengthen their party,
the reformers almost everywhere threw themselves,
body and soul, into the arms, or rather under the feet
of the new kings and princes who had" acquired riches
by the spoliation of the old Church, and had obtained
increased political consequence and power by the pro-
tection of the new gospelers. This protection generally
consisted in that utier enslavement of religion, which
so often results from the union of Church and State,
and which is almost always a necessary result whenever
the spiritual as well as the temporal power is lodged
in the same hands. This was invariably the case
wherever the Reformation triumphed in Europe."

"The idle boast," observes Dr. Corcoran, "that politi-
cal liberty has any connection with Martin Luther or
his Reformation is sufficiently disproved by the fact
that the liberties of Germany were effectually lost
after Lutheranism had brought Germany under its
influence, and nowhere more thoroughly than in Scan-
dinavian Europe, where it became supreme without a
rival." This was noticed more than two hundred years
ago — 1692 — by an acute observer, Lord Molesworth,
British Ambassador to the Court of Copenhagen, who
not only observed the fact, but discovered its reason.
"In the Roman Catholic religion," he says, "there is a
resisting principle to absolute civil power from the
division of authority with the head of the Church of
Rome. But in the North, the Lutheran church is
entirely subservient to the civil power and the whole
of the northern people of Protestant countries have
lost their liberties ever since they have changed their

254 The Facts About Luther

religion for a better." (Quoted by Laing, Notes of a
Traveler.) Mr. Hallam says: 'It is one of the
fallacious views of the Reformation, to which we have
adverted in a former page, to fancy that it sprang
from any notions of political freedom, in such a sense
as we attach to the term."

Luther, then, deserves no praise at the lips of any
well-informed people for any influence his teachings
may have exercised on civi4 or religious liberty. All
the rhetoric expended in lauding him as a great libera-
tor is worse than wasted. Every attempt to hold him
up as the advocate of "freedom of conscience" and
the promoter of "religious liberty" is intended either
to lead the ignorant into error or confirm the delusions
of existing prejudice. The enemies of God and His
Church may glorify to their hearts' content the father
and founder of an evangel that was not the Lord's, but
the voice of all true history testifies that his only claim
to remembrance rests on the fact that he pushed
freedom of thought or assertion and pride of under-
standing to an extreme limit by his revolutionary
break with the Christian traditions and the established
faith of fifteen centuries ; a merit, if we can call it such,
which he shares in common with every heretic, inno-
vator, or reformer, who has troubled the Church of
Christ, from Alexander, the Coppersmith, or Simon
Magnus, down to George Rapp and Joe Smith, one
of the few Americans who figured as a founder of a
"new religion." This has made him a hero forever
with all infidels, materialists and unbelievers of every
class, for they feel, and they are logically right, that he
was their precursor, the first to make possible the over-
throw of the Christian "superstition" and open the
way for the triumph of reason and the new era of
light that they imagine is to succeed Gospel darkness.
But the most ardent devotees and admirers of this false
hero must, if they are thoroughly acquainted with his
teachings, admit that he knew nothing of religious
liberty or freedom of conscience, much less believed
in it, as we understand the phrase. No doubt, he used

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 255

his private judgment freely enough, indeed with ra-
tionaHstic boldness, iii regard to the Scriptures, but
did he ever dream that it was a right belonging to all
Christians, that the Protestant crowds whom he drew
out with him from ''the bondage of the Roman Anti-
christ" possessed that right or that his own followers
and fellow-religionists had the privilege of follow-
ing their own private view in any religious matter
whatever? His practical teaching was everlastingly
to the contrary.

All men were free to differ from the Pope, to reject
his teaching, to curse him to the lowest depths, were
even invited and encouraged to slay him like a wolf or
robber, and wash their hands in his blood and that of
his cardinals and other adherents, but they must not
dare to differ from Luther, who never doubted his own
personal inspiration and his own infallibility. Piously
believing himself to be an authoritative judge, both of
the meaning and of the authenticity of Scripture, did he
not compel, with unrelenting rigor, all his friends and
disciples to subscribe to his doctrinal views, and even
to his capricious changes of opinion ? Did he not when
some, like Carlstadt, Lemnius, Wickel, Agricola,
Schwenkfeld and others, rebelled against the shameful
slavery in which he held them, make them the objects
of his relentless hate and enmity? Did he not manifest
his tyrannical and revengeful spirit against the peasants
who differed from him when he urged the princes to
"choke like mad dogs" the unhappy victims whom his
own teachings had led into their evil courses? Did
he not hate all who presumed to dissent from his
opinions and follow a religious belief of their own and,
as in the case of the Sacramentarians, Zurichers and
others, did he not call them fanatics and factious sec-
tarians, his sworn enemies, soul-murderers, damned
blasphemers, lying mouths with hearts thoroughly pos-
sessed by the devil? Did he not damn to hell's lowest
depths his own dissenting Protestant brethren and did
not the shocking condition of his intolerant mind make
him look upon Jew and Catholic as such outlaws that

256 The Facts About Luther

judicial murder or private assassination were lawful
and commendable in their case?

But it is useless to ask any more questions. The
well-informed know that Luther's gospel in practise
was the gospel of hate toward all who conscientiously-
refused to accept it. Menzel declares that *'this in-
tolerant hatred was as truly a part of the religion of the
reformers as belief in the infallibility of the Church
was for Catholics." Is it any wonder that a gospel,
good only inasmuch as it afforded a plausible shield
and cover to its f ramer's bitter intolerance, should lead
its upholders to persecution for conscience's sake and
move its blind dupes to rioting, violence and the horrors
of war ?

European history for the last three hundred years
and more is Httle beside a record of the trampling
under foot of almost every element of popular govern-
ment and the imposition of the intolerable yoke of
absolute despotism, with union of Church and State,
on the necks of the suffering multitudes. In the good
old times the people, as John Quincy Adams said of
the Swiss cantons in a speech he once made at Builalo,
''loved liberty and therefore remained Catholic." Every
important element of free government, popular repre-
sentation, trial by jury, exemption from taxation
without the consent of the governed, habeas corpus,
and the great fundamental principle, that all power
emanates from the people, were generally recognized
and firmly established. All these blessings Catholics
enjoyed for centuries before the Reformation was even
dreamt of. With its advent seditions and tumults,
civic factions and religious dissensions, distrust among
those who had been hitherto united as brethren, ap-
peared on all sides and paved the way for the omni-
potence of the princes when absolute and uncontrolled
despotism reigned on the one hand, and dreadful
anarchy on the other.

Scherr, an enemy of the Catholic Church, puts the
blame on Luther for the absolute desootism and union
of Church and State in every place in Germany where

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 257

the Reformation obtained a solid footing. In his
'German Culture," Third edition, page 260, he says:
"Luther was the originator of the doctrine of uncon-
ditional surrender to civil power. That two and five
make seven he preached, that you know. But if the civil
government should proclaim that two and five are
eight, then you m.ust believe it against your better
knowledge and sense. That explains why so many
German princes took so kindly to the servile policies
of Lutheranism."

That shifty position of Luther inaugurated a period
of revolution on the one hand and tyranny and abso-
lutism on the other, so that ever since governments and
subjects are at all times at swords' points and can
never regain their balance until the cause of the evil
is removed.

When in this age of ours revolution walks like a
destroying angel among the nations of the earth and
breathes death from its nostrils among the peaceful
inhabitants thereof ; when the rulers upon their thrones
are unsafe; when in this very land of liberty, calling
itself Protestant, a Booth strikes down the most
peaceful of men, the kindly Lincoln ; a Guiteau destroys
the useful life of a Garfield; when at the dawn of the
twentieth century, a ruler chosen by his fellow citizens
is murdered by the hands of the assassin Czolgosz
while enjoying the quiet hospitality of a sovereign
State; and when you ask for the reason that produced
such murderous outrages, we bid you turn to Luther
and his rebellious teachings announced and embodied
in the work styled falsely '^Reformation," producing
the result of a deformation. Luther is its father, the
sixteenth century its cradle and autocracy its pro-
tector and high priest.

If the world to-day rejoices in such liberty as it
possesses, it is indebted, be it remembered, to no prin-
ciple or tendency born of the religious upheaval of the
sixteenth century. Luther taught, preached and exem-
plified in action the propriety and the need of civil and
religious persecution. All his followers in rebellion,

258 The Facts About Luther

Calvin, Beza, Giistavus Vasa and the rest, believed
in and advocated the right and duty to persecute for
civic and religious convictions. The policy of all the
Reformers and of all the nations that became Protes-
tant was from the beginning guided by this beHef and
was always marked by the immediate promulgation of
laws against Catholics and dissenters. Civil and
religious liberty came only after the Reformation
movement had run its disastrous course. Freedom
of conscience is a reaction rather than a result.

It is well to remember that when Christ organized
His Church He commissioned her not only to save
each individual in the human family from the wrath
to come, but Pie commanded her to teach the peoples
in their organized capacity that God is Sovereign Lord
over all, that righteousness exalteth a nation, and that
the body politic, no less than the individual body, must
be kept pure, undefiled and uncorrupted. This saving
teaching the Catholic Church has always and unflinch-
ingly proclaimed from her pulpit, in the confessional
and in the schoolhouse. The nations that heeded the
lesson and the governments that did not dispute the
authority of the teacher became the powerful empires
and kingdoms of the world, the framers of a system
of jurisprudence which has never been excelled, the
husbandmen of a civilization that was most glorious
and enduring, the benefactors of humanity and the
patrons of art and science — everything that adorns
human life and makes for the uplift and ennobling of
society. Those docile nations received their strength,
their influence and their support from the Church,
whose protector in turn they were.

But in the sixteenth century a most disastrous
calamity swept over Christendom. The old bonds of
religion and authority were broken. Civil government
became envious of God's Sovereignty and fortwith
aided and manipulated a fearful and blithing heresy
which demoralize! national life, stimulated revolution
and encouraged lawlessness. Then rebellion against
the Church of Christ became a dogma of civil author-

Luther a Fomentor of Rebellion 259

ity and the aim of subjecting her to civil power was
openly and shamelessly advocated. The new goddess
of liberty, "the sovereignty of the people," with an ex-
tinguished light in her hand, was proclaimed the Queen
of the World, and, while the people were enticed by
her coquettish ways to worship at her shrines the
rulers forged the chains for the victims which they
were to lead away captives.

Ever since Luther's rebellion genius and learning,
wit and satire, eloquence and poetry, sophistry and
specious reasoning have been employed to ridicule,
destroy and stamp out of the mind and action of men
the principle of Divine and human authority. Prot-
estant Christianity squeezed it out of its system ; it
has been driven out of domestic life ; and it is treated
with scorn in governmental circles. Indeed there is
to-day little or no regard for legitimate authority
either in the home or in organized society. The
authority entrusted to the head of the family is almost
entirely discarded. The person of the chief magistrate
of City, State or Nation is treated with disrespect and
the tribunal of justice is hailed with contempt. Majesty
is no longer attached to law. This denial of authority
has demoralized all conception of respect for superi-
ors, for property rights, for individual liberty and the
very foundation stones of the national structure are
being moved one by one, so that the structure itself
is in danger of tottering and of falling asunder. The
general aversion to the guidance of legitimate and
Divinely established law, which Luther's loose and
immoral teachings introduced into the world, and
which have come down to our day, must be removed
if domestic happiness and national prosperity would
bless the land, its homes and its people. It is only
when men render to God the things that are God's
and to Caesar the things that are Caesar's that brother-
ly love, a common feeling of kinship and a readiness
to stand shoulder to shoulder, one for all and all for
one, forming one powerful army, that the uplift, ad-
vancement and sanctification of mankind shall bless

260 The Facts About Luther

the earth. ^'Unless the Lord," as the Holy Spirit says,
"rules the city in vain rule they who rule."

Luther and his Protestantism, on the contrary, pro-
claimed the false doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings
and the unequalled absolutism of rulers and, as might
be expected, freedom was destroyed, sedition promoted
and the security not only of all kinds of property but
even of human life was endangered.

When we consider Luther's teaching and practical
behavior and that of his fellow instigators of rebellion
regarding civil and religious liberty and see how they
struck at the free institutions brought down from the
Middle Ages, only to introduce in their stead a reign
of centralized despotism from which we are but slowly
recovering, we may well and justly say with the Protes-
tant Hallam: "It is strange to see men professing all
the time our modern creed of charity and toleration
extol these sanguinary spirits of the sixteenth century."
(Const. History. Vol. I, ch. HI, p. 147.)

CHAPTER VIII.
Luther on Free-Will and Liberty of Conscience.

WHEN God created man He united to a material
body a spiritual soul endowed with faculties that
not only proclaim his dignity and nobility, but tell him
that he is to be eternally happy or miserable according
to the good or bad use he makes of these gifts in this
world. One of the principal perfections with which
man is endowed is the faculty of free-will. After his
own existence, there is no truth he realizes more vividly
in his inner consciousness than the possession of free-
will. Through this faculty man's soul is enabled,
according to its liking, to do what it pleases, act or not
act, decide in such or such a manner, and among
different impressions, choose one and attach itself
to it in such wise that it becomes insensible to every
other, as occurs so often in the phenomenon of ab-
straction, where the mind, exclusively occupied with
one object, hears nothing, feels nothing, sees nothing
that is passing around it.

This faculty of free-will differentiates man from
all other creatures that surround him. Whilst matter
is blindly submissive to the action of external agencies
and other creatures obey a superior immutable will,
which constrains them always and everywhere to
execute its commands, it is man's God-given privilege
to think, reason and will freely. His soul acts or does
not act ; it wishes or it does not wish ; it chooses or
does not choose ; while doing one thing it perceives
perfectly well that it m.ieht do another instead. If
the action is good, the sonl experiences joy; if bad,
remorse ; for it feels that it is free not to act
imorooerly. There is no one amonq: us unacquainted
with the sentiment of pleasure or pain, which follows
the commission of a good or a bad action. This
sentiment we could not experience if we had not been
free to act as we choose; we could not then merit

263 The Facts About Luther

either recompense or chastisement. Without free-will
we should move as mere machines. All things
would be equal, since all things would be compulsory.
In this condition it would be absurd and unjust to
punish vice and reward virtue ; or rather, there would
be neither good nor evil, neither vice nor virtue.
Accordingly, God would be unjust in rewarding some
and punishing others; but if God were unjust, He
would no longer be God; He would no longer be
anything; the world would be an effect without a
cause. Such is the abyss, Gaume tells us, into which
all fall after a few steps if they deny the free-will
of the soul.

The liberty or freedom from interior necessity or
compulsion we enjoy as thinking and reasonable beings
is the subjective basis of all moral, religious, civil
and social order. On this inestimable privilege of
self-determination the Catholic Church has always
laid great stress and has ever uniformly and con-
sistently considered it as the foundation of all man's
worship of God and all communication with Him.
In His merciful designs He willed "that all men be
saved and come to a knowledge of the truth." To
help them to fulfill His will and to acquire eternal
happiness, He gives His grace to all without excep-
tion. In the bestowal of His heavenly assistance to
man God leaves him entirely free to receive or to
reject it. Man's freedom of choice ever remains in
this life his own peculiar possession to do with it
whatsoever he pleases and select for himself a right
or a wrong course regarding his eternal destiny.
Whilst God is ever ready to assist man to arrive at a
wholesome and unfettered decision, yet He will not
overrule, dominate, or derange the will of man to
deprive it of its freedom of choice between good and
evil. God made man without his co-operation, but,
as St. Augustine says, "He will not snve without it."
Man in co-operating with God's grace does not thereby
lose his freedom of will. Under the action of His
grace man retains all his power of freedom and,

Free- Will and Liberty of Conscience 263

therefore, all the efforts he makes in the salvation
of his soul are **as an act organically one, effected
equally by God's grace and by his free co-operation."
"Free-will," as St. Augustine aptly remarks, "is not
destroyed because it is assisted by grace ; it is assisted
because it has not been destroyed."

To this basic truth of sane reason, the pillar of all
religious belief, Luther was decidedly and unalterably
antagonistic. It mattered not to him that the vast
majority of the human race believed in the freedom of
the human will and manifested on every page of his-
tory since the world began acknowledgemnt of the
sense of duty and the force of the requirements of the
moral order. In spite of the general belief of mankind,
the teaching of Scripture and the docrine of the Cath-
olic Church on man's power of choice for what is good,
he gradually came to hold and to advocate that man
does not possess freedom of will, and is, therefore, in-
capable of either merit or guilt in the sight of his Cre-
ator. Moving along the old lines of his distaste for
good works and for so-called self-righteousness, he
came to exaggerate the results of original sin with re-
gard to doing what is good and imagined that the fall
of our first parents warped and obliterated the freedom
of moral choice by giving rise to concupiscence and the
movements of inordinate passion. The false concep-
tion he formed of the corruption of human nature
by original sin and concupiscence led him on to the
denial of all liberty on man's part for doing what is
good and to the adoption of the idea of "the imputation
of the merits of Christ as a cloak to cover and hide
all iniquity." The Catholic doctrine, which holds that
free-will had not been destroyed by original sin, and
that in one who acts aright, it is not interfered with
by Goi's grace, he thought "did not allow to free-will
its full rights since it ostensibly does all and obliterates
every free deed in the domain of salvation." Original
sin, which the Catholic Church attributes to the vol-
untary weakness of man and the artifice of the

264 The Facts About Luther

seducer, he had, as we shall show further on, the
temerity to attribute to the thrice Holy God.

In scanning Luther's works issued from 1516 to
1524, we frequently discover certain emphatic state-
ments on the question of man's free-will, which give
a clear insight into his trend of thought and show-
plainly his intention to develop his new theories and
to make them the core and kernel of all his teaching.
From out the vast number of the false assertions he
made during this period we present the following:
"Everything happens of necessity"; "Man, when he
does what is evil, is not master of himself"; "Man
does evil because God ceases to work in him" ;
"By virtue of His nature God's ineluctable concursus
determines everything, even the m.ost trivial," hence
"inevitable necessity" compels us in "all that v/e do
and everything that happens" ; "God alone moves and
impels all that He has made," nay, "He decrees all
things in advance by His infallible will" including
the inevitable damnation of those who are damned.
These assertions indicate clearly and unmistakably
his position and feeling regarding the doctrine of
human will and the liberty of the thinking being.
Although his views are as false as they are blas-
phemous, they surprise none familiar with his imscrip-
tural teaching on justification by faith alone, which
totally deprived human action of all moral character
and mankind of all moral responsibility. In order to
give some appearance of logical coherence to his new
system of religion based on the general corruption of
human nature due to original sin, it is easy to under-
stand how naturally he came to deny the freedom of
the human will, to excuse human culpability and to
minimize human responsibility. In his estimation
man's will was totally depraved and, therefore, pos-
sessed no self-determining power. Fathering this view
of man's will, which destroys all moral liberty, he thus
revived and reproduced in a somewhat new form the
ancient Gnostic and Manichean error and forthwith
made this teaching the fundamental doctrine of his

Free-Will and Liberty of Conscience 265

new system of belief. So confident and assured was
he of the soundness and correctness of his position
regarding man's will that he wanted none to attack
or dispute his favorite teaching, for to do so "would,"
as he says, ''place the knife at his throat."

To those who have been taught all along that Luther
was the one great champion of human liberty, it must
come as a shocking surprise to learn for the first
time that their hero persistently denied free-will in
man and considered it, to use his own words, "a
mere empty name." It is true that at times in some
of his practical writings and instructions he makes ^t
appear as though the Christian were free, with the
help of grace, to follow the path of salvation. He
expresses this view in his exposition of the Penitential
Psalms, the Our Father and the Ten Commandments.
In his sermons on the Decalogue he even calls the
opinion "godless," that any man is forced by necessity
to sin and not rather led to commit it by his own
inclination. "All that God has made is good and thus
all natural inclination is to what is good." In his
tract "On the Freedom of the Christian Man" written
in October, 1520, he teaches that the Christian is "free
lord of all and subject to none." Thus, in such works
as he intended for the furtherance of the Christian
life, he speaks to the faithful as though they still
enjoyed moral freedom of the will and liberty of
choice. But when we glance at his "Commentary on
Romans," the "Resolutions" on the Leipzig Disputa-
tion and the "Assertio omnium articulorum," written
in defense of his condemned propositions, we find
his language is the very reverse of that used in his
sermons, expositions and practical writings. These
works do not pass over his denial of free-will in
silence. They are most outspoken in opposition to
free-will and contain in substance all the strictures
embodied later on in his treatise entitled "Slave Will'*
In one of the works iust named Luther says: "The
world has allowed itself to be seduced by the flattering
doctrine of free-will which is pleasing to nature." If

266 The Facts About Luther

any point of his teaching, then certainly that of the
**captive will" is to be accounted one of the "most
sublime mysteries of our faith and religion, which
only the godless know not, but to which the true
Christian holds fast." (Assertio, etc., pp. 95, 158.)

This statement of Luther shows how close to his
heart was his pet teaching on the absence of free-will
in man. But whilst he and many of his ardent fol-
lowers were satisfied with the strange pronouncement,
there were millions who did not consider his "captive
will" as anything but degrading and demoralizing.
From the beginning its announcement and tendency
to unsettle moral conditions were discerned by the
enlightened in the community and the prevailing con-
victions of humanity resented the insult embodied in
the teaching. Opposition was met with in almost all
quarters. Many, even in the wide circle of his own
readers, were startled at his bold attacks on free-will
and not a few, considering his inconsistency on the
point, now admitting and again denying the faculty of
man's freedom, and weighing the consequences of his
final adoption of the "captive will" as one of the "most
sublime mysteries of his faith and religion," aban-
doned his cause and refused longer to be associated
with his movement. The promulgation of his views
on free-will caused widespread scandal and opened
the way to the licentious for the commission of the
grossest violations of law divine and civil.

"Capito," Grisar says, "declared himself openly
against Luther's theories concerning the absolute
enslavement of the will. The Humanist Mosellanus
(Peter Schade), a great admirer of the Wittenbergers,
spoke so strongly at Leipzig against the propositions
deduced from Luther's teaching on predestination to
hell, that the latter was warned of what had occurred.
Many who had previously been favorably disposed
to Luther, were repelled by his teaching on the
enslaved will and fell away then or later, for instance,
the learned naturalist George Agricola."

Luther during a period of seven or eight years

Free- Will and Liberty of Conscience 267

labored with all his energy by writing and preaching
to destroy in the hearts of the people the traditional
teaching of the Church on the important question of
free-will, justification and pardon. His efforts were
not without results among the ill-informed, the lovers
of novelty and the rebellious. The confusion and
disorder, which followed everywhere as a consequence
of his demoralizing teachings, threatened to under-
mine the very foundations of society itself. Among
the vast number who grew alarmed at the frightful
condition noticeable on all sides was Erasmus, whom
Luther endeavored by flattery to win over to his
side and whom he called the "Glory and Hope of
Germany.'* This man was a prolific author and wrote
in the most fluent Latin. He enjoyed great fame
in the domain of learning and, by common consent,
was the first authority of the day on classical and
critical studies. Justly renowned for his general
literary culture and familiarity with religions and
historical questions, he was just the man the occasion
required to hold Luther up to the world in his true
colors and help to diminish the corruption then every-
where rampant on account of the Reformer's loose
doctrine. Though timid by nature and preferring any
other task to attacking Luther, he launched forth in
1524, at Basle, his work, "De libcro arhitrio diatribe,"
which administered a severe blow to Luther and
enlightened all on the fallacy and dangers of the
religion of the ''enslaved will." Many cultured lay-
men, such as Duke George of Saxony, Ulrich Zasius
and Martin Lipsius, expressed their approbation of
Erasmus' work in defense of free-will. Melanchthon,
Luther's closest friend, praised the moderation with
which the champion of free-will treated the subject
Even Luther himself admitted the kindness displayed
by Erasmus in this work. According to Vedder, a
non-Catholic writer of our own day, "this great
scholar (Erasmus) had little difficulty in pointing out
Luther's errors and in showing that his doctrine of
the will is incompatible with reason, experience and

268 The Facts About Luther

the general tenor of Scripture.'* In a tone of studied
moderation and without a trace of bitterness,
"Erasmus," to use the words of Grisar, "dwelt with
emphasis and success on the fact, that according to
Luther, not merely every good, but also every evil
must be referred to God; this was in contradiction
with the nature of God and was excluded by His
Holiness. According to Luther, God inflicted eternal
damnation on sinners, whereas they, in so far as
they were not free agents, could not be held respon-
sible for their sins; what Luther had advanced
demanded that God should act contrary to His eternal
Goodness and Mercy; it would also follow that
earthly laws and penalties were superfluous, because
without free-will no one could be responsible; finally,
the doctrine involved the overthrow of the whole moral
order."

In pointing out the practical difficulties of Luther's
reckless assertions, Erasmus called on the heresiarch
to rtply to his arguments, which may be briefly summed
up as follows: "If the will of man is not free to
choose the good who will try to lead a good life ? Will
not everyone find a ready excuse for all sins and
vices by saying: I could not help falling? What is
the meaning of God's lav/, if the people for whom it
was made cannot obey? The whole legislation of
God becomes a farce and a mockery if man has not
the power to observe it. How, finally, can God punish
or reward those who cannot choose between good and
evil, but merely do what they must?" These were
practical questions, but Luther never attempted to
deal with them seriously.

"Erasmus, in defending free-will," writes A. Taube,
a Protestant theologian, "fights for responsibility, duty,
guilt and repentance, ideas which are essential to
Christian piety. He vindicates the capacity of the
natural man for salvation, without which the identity
between the old and the new man cannot be .main-
tained, and without which the new life imparted by
God's grace ceases to be a result of moral effort and

Free- Will and Liberty of Conscience 269

becomes rather the last tCx^rn of a magical process.
He combats the fatalism which is incompatible with
Christian piety and which Luther contrived to avoid
only by his want of logic; he vindicates the moral
character of the Christian religion, to which, from
the standpoint of Luther's theology, it was impossible
to do justice." (A. Taube, "Luther's Lehre uber die
Freiheit, etc.," Gottingen, 1901, p. 46.)

Although the work of Erasmus reached Luther in
September, 1524, it was not until late in the following
year that a reply was issued. The troubles of the
Peasants' War and his marriage to a kidnapped nun
engrossed his attention to the exclusion of almost
everything besides. He was inclined at first to treat
his opponent's attack with contempt, but when Kath-
erine Von Bora represented to him "that his foes
might see in his obstinate silence an admission of
defeat," he began his reply and composed it, as he
himself admits, in excessive haste. To this work he
gave the title "De sei'vo arbitrio" — "On the enslaved
unll," which was borrowed from a misunderstood
saying of St. Augustine. In this famous volume,
Luther defined his position on the absence of free-will
and expressed his matured convictions that man is
absolutely devoid of freedom of choice, even in the
performance of works not connected with salvation
and moral acts generally. Luther was very proud of
this work. He thought it was unanswerable and defied
Erasmus and even the devil to refute it. Notwith-
standing the high estimate he conceived of this treatise,
it is well-known that many in his own day regretted
its issue, for as Kostlin-Kawerau remarks, "it was
a stumbling block to his followers, and attempts were
made to explain it away by all the arts of violent
exegesis." Kattenbusch says, in the preface of his
study on this work, that "quite rightly it caused great
scandal and wonder." Vedder, another Protestant
author, says : "Though this is 1)y far the most decent
of all his controversial writings, his 'Slave Will'
cannot be commended to controversialists for their

270 The Facts About Luther

imitation. He cannot deny himself the pleasure of
an occasional mean fling, and a bitter epithet bursts
forth from him now and then, as if it were unavv^ares,
while a tone of ill-suppressed rage is heard through
the whole." (Vedder, p. 230.)

The tone of this book is indeed violent, but, what
is worse, the doctrine it advances is debasing and
wantonly demoralizing. As one wades through its
dismal pages, it is impossible to refrain from asking
how any man claiming, as Luther did, to be a
religious reformer, could pen anything so revolting and
so shocking to the common sense of the Christian
heart as the wild, reckless and unfounded assertions
that fill it from cover to cover.

It is not possible in a chapter like this to give a full
review of Luther's work on ''Slave Will." To set
forth completely the whole theory of his enslaved will
would require volumes. In the limited space at our
disposal we can only ofYer the reader a few extracts,
which embody his teachings and are fairly represen-
tative of all the views he held on the subject. In
order to remove any suggestion of bias in the matter,
we quote the non-Catholic Vedder's findings. "Luther,"
he says, "grounds this doctrine of the will in the
nature of God." He then quotes the following from the
Reformer's work on "Slave Will" : "The omnipotence
of God makes it, that the wicked cannot evade the
motion and action of God, but, being of necessity sub-
ject to it, he yields. . . God cannot suspend His omni-
potence on account of his aversion, nor can the wicked
man change his aversion. Wherefore it is that he must
of necessity continue to sin and err, until he be
amended by the Spirit of God. To the objection that
this contradicts our ideas of goodness and justice,
Luther declares that whatever God wills is right, purely
because He wills it; God is that being, for whose
will no cause or reason is to be assigned as a rule
or standard by which it acts; seeing that nothing is
superior or equal to it, but it is itself the rule of
all things. For if it acted by any rule or standard,

Free- Will and Liberty of Conscience 271

or from any cause or reason, it would no longer be
the will of God. Wherefore, what God wills is there-
fore not right because He so wills. A cause and
reason are assigned for the will of the creature, but
not for the will of the Creator, unless you set up,
over Him, another Creator." ''Luther thus treats us,"
says Vedder, "to the ultimate absurdity of his system,
a God who is wholly irrational, and acts without any
reason, or else He could not be God." Is not this
evidence enough to brand Luther as an out and out
enemy of God and man, and rank him among the
vilest teachers the world ever produced?

At the end of his work on "Slave Will" the
irreverent author sums up all he had written and
appeals to God's rule and to His unchangeable predes-
tination of all things, even the most insignificant;
likewise to the empire of the devil and his power
over spirits. In the most shameful manner and
without a blush, he revives the old Persian idea of
two eternal principles of good and evil contending
continually for the possession of man. With a slight
variation of the ancient debasing doctrine of Manes,
he declares that man is the merely passive subject of
a contest between God and the devil. To make his
meaning evident, he, to the amazement of all, com-
pares man to a beast of burden who is compelled to
move in whatever direction the rider may require.

*'Man," he says, "is like a horse. Does God leap
into the saddle? The horse is obedient and accom-
modates itself to evei*y movement of the rider and
goes whither he wills it. Does God throw down the
reins? Then Satan leaps upon the back of the animal,
which bends, goes and submits to the spurs and
caprices of its new rider. The will cannot choose its
rider and cannot kick against the spur that pricks it.
It must go on and its very docility is a disobedience
or a sin. The only struggle possible is between the
two riders, who dispute the momentary possession of
the steed, and, then, is fulfilled the saying of the
Psalmist: 'I am become like a beast of burden.'

27Z The Facts About Luther

Let the Christian, then, know that God foresees nothing
contingently, but that he foresees, proposes and acts
from His internal and immutable will. This is the
thunderbolt that shatters and destroys free-will. Hence
it comes to pass that whatever happens, happens
according to the irreversible decrees of God. There-
fore, necessity, not free-will, is the controlling principle
of our conduct. God is the author of what is evil
in us as well as of what is good, and, as He bestows
happiness on those who merit it not, so also, does He
damn others who deserve not their fate." (De Servo
Arbitrio, in op. lat. 7, 113 seq.)

This parable summarizes the whole of Luther's
teaching on the vital and all-important subject of man's
free-will. It expresses in the most deliberate manner
his matured conviction on the question ; and so sure
is he of the soundness of his view that he declares
it to be the very core and basis of religion. ''Without
this doctrine of the enslaved will, the supernatural
character of Christianity cannot," so he says, "be
maintained; the work of redemption falls to the
ground, because whoever sets up free-will cheats
Christ of all His merit; whoever advocates free-will
brings death and Satan into his soul." 'To me," he
says in another passage, "the defense of this truth
is a matter of supreme and eternal importance. I
am convinced that life itself should be set at stake
in order to preserve it. It must stand though the
whole world be involved thereby in strife and tumult,
nay, even fall into ruins."

The last words in Luther's book on "Slave Will,"
Grisar says, "even exceed the rest in confidence and
the audacity of his demand that his work should be
accepted without question almost takes away one's
breath. 'In this book I have not merely theorized;
I have set up definite propositions and these I shall
defend; no one will I permit to pass judgment on
them and I advise all to submit to them. May the
Lord Whose cause is here vindicated/ he says,

Free-Will and Liberty of Conscience 273

addressing himself to Erasmus, 'give you light to
make of you a vessel to His honor and glory. Amen.'

No one has ever attempted to deny the existence,
authenticity and authorship of this book. Some of
Luther's admirers, however, have endeavored to
defend the grotesque theses advanced in this famous
work and give them a meaning altogether foreign to
their expression, development and spirit. But all their
arts of "violent exegesis" cannot hide or remove from
the pages of this work the hard, offensive, saul-
destroying teaching it formulates. No amount of
enthusiasm for Luther's standpoint can ever wipe
out the degrading doctrine of despair announced
within its covers. To apologize for the detestable
teaching by claiming that *'it was essentially Lutheran"
will never down the scandal and wonder it gave rise
to. All who are honest and fearless of consequences
must admit in frankest terms, that Luther's teach-
ing on free-will, as expounded in his book, and
explicitly making God the author of man's evil
thoughts and deeds, cannot but lend a mighty force
to the passions and justify the grossest violations of
the moral law. Indeed, the enemy of souls, as
Anderdon remarks, ''could not inspire a doctrine more
likely to effect his wicked designs than Luther's teach-
ing on the enslavement of the human will."

When we stop to reflect on Luther's favorite
parable, we cannot help asking ourselves what sort
of a man was he and what did he think would likely
be the effect on the simple and untrained mind of
his singular doctrine and its concomitant despair? Is
not the man portrayed in his teaching? Does not his
teaching show the confusion of his mind and the
lack of an exact logical system? And does not his
whole theory, born of personal motives and fashioned
to suit his own state of soul, show clearly enough
that it could not be approved of heaven or help to
righteousness? Think of what this erratic man, with
all his presumptuous belief in himself, says, and then
judge for yourselves whether or not his doctrine on

274 The Facts About Luther

the enslaved will should become, as he wished, the
common conviction of all the faithful, which none can
do without, and which he made the very basis of
his new Christianity. What man in his senses would
subscribe to such an audacious demand and accept
such a singular innovation without questioning its
inconsistency, obscurity and confusion? When he
says, *'If you happen to have Satan for a rider, you
must go as Satan wills and there is no help for it,"
does he not debase man and make him a mere tool,
a machine, an automaton? Likening him to a ''beast
of burden," does he not maintain that man is utterly
powerless ''by reason of his fallen nature" to lead
a godly life, and merit by the practice of virtue the
rewards of eternal happiness? Does he not say: "It
is written on the hearts of men that there is no freedom
of will," that "all takes place in accordance with
inexorable necessity," and that even "were free-will
offered him, he should not care to have it?" But
does not all this contradict the Spirit of God when
speaking in the Book of Ecclesiasticus He says:
"Before man is life and death, good and evil; that
which he shall choose shall be given him."

Luther, unfortunately for himself and others, would
have none of this teaching and though it is God's
own doctrine, he, in his extraordinary self-confidence,
boldly and blasphemously maintained that man has not
the power to choose between "life and death, good and
evil." Thus "the law of liberty," as St. James
declares, "the law by which all shall be judged," is
ruthlessly and brutally brushed aside by the arbitrary
pronouncement of this deluded man to make way for
the spread of his false, degrading and fanciful concept
of liberty, the liberty of the horse bridled, bitted and
spurred, the horse that must obey his rider, which-
ever of the two contending riders represented in his
profane parable occupies the saddle. "It is," he says,
"either God or the devil that rules; man has no
freedom of choice and is absolutely devoid of respon-
sibility for his acts. Having lost free-will, man cannot

Free- Will and Liberty of Conscience 275

observe the precepts of the Decalogue; he cannot
master his passions ; he must sin as long as he lives."
"As God pushes him, then he does something not
through free will, but by the power of God; and
when the devil pushes him, then he does something
not through free will, but by the power of Satan who
takes possession of him. When the devil takes posses-
sion of some man or leaves him, it is only by that
arbitrary will by which God wills that a certain
number shall be damned and a certain number shall
be saved. Then the conclusion is simply this: that
those who are to be saved are to be saved without
any regard to their good works and that they will
be saved; that there is nothing in heaven or earth
that can keep them from being saved. Why, then,
should they undertake to do anything themselves? It
matters not to them ; they will be saved anyway what-
ever they do. And, as for those unfortunate ones
who are left behind and are to be damned, how idle
for them to kick against the arbitrary decree ! They
must perish anyway, and as they must perish, they
ought to say to themselves : 'Let us eat and drink and
be merry for to-morrow we die.'"

The foregoing is only a part of the infamous and
degrading teaching propounded without a blush in
Luther's work on the enslavement of the human will.
There is much besides in this scandalous volume of
such a despicable nature that we would be ashamed
to present it to the public unless forced to do so in
the interests of truth. This, like almost all of Luther's
writings, is full of pitch and, in reading his works,
one is bound to look well to his hands lest they be
soiled.

Luther's teaching on the loss of free-will was, on
account of its novelty and the license it encouraged,
soon taken up and zealously advocated by many who
loved error rather than truth. Among those who
advocated the oracle of the fiery apostle, we will name
only a few of his most prominent supporters.

Melanchthon comes first in order. He was Luther's

276 The Facts About Luther

mild, gentle and most obsequious friend. In the
December of 1521, he published a work entitled "Loci
Communes Rerum Theologkarum," which was the tech-
nical exposition of Lutheranism at that time. In this
work the disciple of Luther gives clear and full expres-
sion to his master's teaching. **A11 that happens,'*
Melanchthon says there, ''happens of necessity in
accordance with the Divine predestination ; there is no
such thing as freedom of the will." As might be
expected, he inveighed in his work against the Cath-
olic theologians, whom he accused of having borrowed
from philosophy and imparted into Christianity the
--topious doctrine of liberty, a doctrine absolutely
opposed to Scripture. It is, also, to the philosophy
of Plato, according to him, that we are indebted for
the equally pernicious word, "reason." It is of interest
to remark that the author of this work later on, when
freed from the tyranny of his master, came to a more
correct view, making no secret of his rejection of
Luther's determinism.

Another promoter of Luther's doctrine on free-will
was Ulrich Zwingle, who in the course of time was
denounced by the friends of the Reformer as a
**false prophet, a mountebank, a hog, a heretic." This
advocate of the new doctrine of Luther was ordained
for the diocese of Constance, Switzerland, in 1506.
From the opening of his career he was noted for his
light-mindedness, frivolity and slavery to sensual
pleasures. When his familiarity with a woman of
notorious and profligate character became public, he
was obliged to resign his care of souls. In 1522 he
had the audacity to write to his bishop to demand a
general permission for priests to marry. In this
letter he candidly acknowledged his many and griev-
ous lapses. "Your Lordship," he writes, "knows
very well how disgraceful my conduct heretofore has
been and how my crimes have been the ruin and
scandal of many." The bishop, of course, was power-
less in the matter, but Zwingle, nothing daunted, dis-
pensed himself and took to himself a widow, one

Free-Will and Liberty of Conscience 277

Anna Reinhard, with whom he had lived for many
years, without leave of either Church or State. A
character of this sort was prepared to lend himself
to the propagation of any protective doctrine no matter
how immoral. Following the lines of his leader he
wrote a brutal book, ''On Prozidence,'* in which he
repeats at every page that "God leads and forces man
into evil ; that he makes use of the creature to produce
injustice, and that yet he does not sin; for the law
which makes an act sinful does not exist for God,
and, moreover. He always acts from right and
supremely holy intentions. The creature, on the con-
trary, although acting involuntarily under the Divine
guidance, sins, because he violates the law and acts
from damnable motives." Without a blush this
"Reformer" brutally declares : "I will indulge my
sinful desires and, whatever I shall do, God is the
author of it. It is by the ordination of God that
this man is a parricide and that man is an adulterer."
Such was the teachinof and practice of the man whom
his friends call the "Eagle of Helvetia" and praise as
"full of noblest chivalry."

Another of the wretched number who lent assist-
ance to spread the harrowing teaching on the loss of
free-will in man, was John Calvin, who was born at
Nayon, France, in 1509, three years after Zwingle's
ordination. He, too, studied for the Church, but was
obliged to leave the seminary early on account of his
immoral and revolutionary proclivities. After advo-
cating Luther's teachings at the Sorbonne, Paris, he
departed in 1534 for Basle, where he wrote his
"Institutes of the Christian Religion." Later on he
betook himself to Geneva where he gathered disciples
and set up his special brand of worship in 1538. Over-
bearing, cruel and despotic in character, he meted
out the direst vengeance to all who dared to con-
trovert or assail his false preachments. His barbarous
treatment of Balsec, Ameaux, Gruet, Gentilis,- and
Servetus. the latter of whom he seized and burned
at the stake, himself an eye-witness to the holocaust.

278 ■ The Facts About Luther

is a well-known fact of history. Such was the man
who himself was branded with the infamous mark
of the galleys for having committed a crime of so
shameful a character that it cannot be named here.
This vindictive and licentious ally of Luther evolved
from the teachings of his master the gruesome system
of an absolute predestination by which God from all
eternity has irrevocably destined some to goodness and
eternal happiness, and others to evil and eternal misery.
He taught that "free-will no longer had an existence"
and that "God was the author of man's sins." "For
reasons," he says, "incomprehensible to our ignorance,
God irresistibly impels man to violate His laws, that
His inspirations turn to evil the heart of the wicked,
and that man falls, because God has thus ordered it."
These are beautiful assertions to fall from the lips of
one who claime 1 to be a reformer. Satan himself
could harcHy formulate a dogma more designed to
insult God and deceive the souls of men. No wonder
that the Protestant minister, Mr. Pouzait, writing of
Calvin's theological system, declared it to be "the most
horrible ever conceived by any human being." His
death was as sad as his life was indecent.

The last one we shall refer to here who espoused
Luther's views on free-will was the mellifluous
Theodore of Beza. When Calvin died in 1564, in the
fifty-sixth year of his age, after a life of tyranny
over both the bodies and souls of men, Beza, who
was his disciple and who wrote his history, succeeded
to the leadership of the gloomy religionism which
his master introduced into Geneva as a substitute for
the Catholic religion. Of this man, Hesshuss writes:
"Who will not be astonished at the incredible impu-
dence of this monster, whose scandalous life is known
throughout France?" This estimate sums up all we
care to know about him. His teaching, like his life,
is horrible and disgusting. Wishing to explain abso-
lute predestination, which Calvin had taught as an
incontrovertible but profoundly mysterious dogma,
he boldly "affirms that God has created the largest

Free- Will and Liberty of Conscience 279

portion of men only with the object of making use
of them to do evil ; and then gives as a reason for it,
that God, in the creation of the universe, designed to
manifest His justice and His mercy; but how could
this end he attained with creatures who, remaininj^
innocent, would need no pardon, nor merit any punish-
ment ; God then ordains that they should sin ; He saves
some and here His compassion is seen ; He condemns
others, and behold His justice. The end that God
proposes to Himself is evidently just and holy ; conse-
quently the means must be the same." Thus the
disciple goes farther in blasphemy than the master,
but, like all others in rebellion in his day, Beza makes
the action of justification and spiritual regeneration a
mere mechanical movement of man under the irre-
sistible influence of God. In his system, as in that
of all the other reformers, there is no room, as in Cath-
olic doctrine for casting ofT the degradation of sin,
freeing one's self from the tyranny of passion and the
corrupt love of creatures, and following in the foot-
steps of Jesus Christ and in the way of His Command-
ments.

In presenting to our readers a condensed and neces-
sarily imperfect summary of facts regarding the
teaching and standing of the chief lights of the
Reformation, we would not be understood as wishing
to reflect upon the character or conduct of the present
professors of Lutheran and Calvinistic doctrines, many
of whom are men estimable for their civic virtues.
It is not our fault that the truth of history will not
warrant a better showing for those who played a public
and conspicuous part in the great religio-political
drama of the sixteenth century. Their life and acts
and teachings are all matters of public and official
record, open to closest scrutiny and investigation. The
facts cannot be concealed and all who know these
must honestly confess that the work of the leaders
of the Reformation was one of sorrowful darkness,
despair and disintegration. One and all were enemies
of the Church God established for all men and for

280 The Facts About Luther

all time. They labored under the hallucination that
they were serving God by impressing their individual
character and system of salvation upon their deluded
and unthinking followers, but, in reality, they were
ministers of Satan, as their abuse of God's Church
and their scandalous treatment and perversion of His
Revelation to mankind abundantly show. The prin-
ciples they fathered sapped the very foundations of
the true worship of God and destroyed all moral sense
in man. The evil effects of their destructive propa-
ganda were noticeable everywhere in their own day
and passed down to successive ages bringing in
their train an immoralit}^ a lewdness and a licen-
tiousness that have hardly been equalled in the worst
days of paganism. The teaching of these lawless ones
is rampant even to-day. It is substantially that which
is now put forth by our modern materialists, who
brazenly contend that the human v^^ill is devoid of
self-direction and self-determining power, as is a
feather subject to the action of different currents of
air. Thus the evil done by the so-called Reformers
in their day and generation lives after them to discredit
their mission and their authority and to warn all to
beware of their false teaching and their pernicious
example.

It is pitiful to know that in this enlightened age
there are numbers in our midst who still claim Luther
as the friend of hberty and a defender of the rights
of reason. These men are unwilling to read his
works, which, as every scholar recognizes, present a
dismal and low estimate of human nature and do
not, therefore, entitle him to be considered in any
legitimate sense as an apostle of humanity, of human
liberty, of human dignity or inherent worth. Re-
ligious bigotry, which controls and dominates all
their natural impulses of decency and honor, pre-
vents them from seeing the insult Luther's teaching
presents to human freedom and its disastrous effects
upon true reli.eion and real Christian morality. In
the words of the Holy Spirit of Truth we cry out:

Free- Will and Liberty of Conscience 2S1

"O ye sons of men how long will ye be dull of heart?
Why do you love vanity and seek after lying?" If
you love truth and sincerely desire enlightenment
open up the pages of Luther's work on "Slave Will"
and discover for yourselves at first hand that he spoke
very little of liberty, and that he had no conception
of it other than as what we call "license," the license to
resist and to rebel against all legitimate authority,
Ecclesiastical and Civil. In that work you will find
that he maintained with all his force that man is a
hopelessly corrupt being, as devoid of all spiritual
freedom as a mere animal, utterly incapable of
doing good, the sport of either a devil that mocks
him or of a God that damns without mercy. Is not
such a teaching calculated to make the blood run
cold in the veins of men attuned to the truth as
it is in Christ and His Church? Examine the book
carefully and see for yourselves how the principle
he lays down as gospel truth not only attacks, but
destroys a possession and an attribute of man which
has ever been held sacred and which is dear to the
human heart, namely, human Hberty. When you
become acquainted with his horrible teaching, you
will not wonder that to him the word "Hberty," which
excites a thrill and stirs the deepest feelings of the
soul, had little or no significance.

The truth is that Luther rarely spoke or wrote of lib-
erty in the sense in which we know and realize the
God-given boon. It is a well-known fact of history
that he did not favor that freedom of thought which
later became the vogue among his progeny. Liberty,
as he understood the word, was solely for himself,
but not for others. With him it was a personal matter.
All men were free to diflfer with the Pope, to reject
his teaching, to curse him to the lowest depths, were
even invited and encouraged to slay him like a wolf
or robber, and wash their hands in his blood and
that of his cardinals and other adherents, but they
must not dare to diflrer from Martin Luther. Sir
William Hamilton, a non-Catholic writer, says : "The

282 The Facts About Luther

great reformer had an assurance of his personal
inspiration of which he was, indeed, no less confident
than of his ability to perform miracles. He disclaimed
the Pope, he spurned the Church, but varying in all
else, he never doubted of his own infallibility." His
autocracy, as is well known, allowed no discussion
and his intolerance knew no limits. The tyranny that
dominated his propaganda was the natural result of
his false and un-heard of theories. Theory, as every
one knows, is the cause of practice and, therefore,
it is evident that from a corrupt theory, corrupt con-
duct will flow. Luther advanced the false theory that
man did not possess free-will, and by consequence
was deprived of personal liberty, and thus holding
tenaciously to his false theory he could not save him-
self from its corruption, and, naturally, he became not
the advocate, but the enemy of all liberty, civil and
religious.

Non-Catholics, as a rule, are not familiar with the
degrading teachings which Luther expounded in his
infamous work on ''Slave Will." They have never
been given an opportunity to study this volume at
first hand and find out for themselves the destructive
principles therein advocated. Their ignorance of the
facts has been taken advantage of and they have
been made to believe that their leader, who declared
man's will to be a "slave will," was the real and
only one who promoted liberty in the sixteenth cen-
tury by breaking the fetters of religious bondage and
securing for all perfect freedom of conscience and
thought. This view has been repeated so often by
the maligners of truth that they have come to imagine
that as soon as the people of Europe got the Bible,
Luther's Bible, mistranslated, changed, and altered,
they abandoned the Mother Church, rushed into the
new man-made form of religion of their own accord
and at once established civil and religious liberty for
everybody. The story is fascinating. It tells against
Rome and, therefore, thousands upon thousands have

Free-Will and Liberty of Conscience 283

been deceived into giving it credence. What, how-
ever, is the hard, cold, plain truth in the case?

History, when truly and fully written, proves that
all the notions entertained by our separated brethren
on this matter are but the lying artifices of the mis-
chievous, intended to deceive, and that whenever and
wherever Luther's abominable principles and his
Protestantism triumphed, they succeeded by violence,
torture, persecution and the power of wicked princes
against the struggles, the protestations and the mani-
fest will of the people. Everywhere that they attained
control of the government, which they invariably
sought, they overthrew religious liberty and imperiously
imposed their new-fangled beliefs on the country and
on the people thereof. This may seem a very strong
statement, but the facts of history confirm it most
abundantly. In advancing this sta::ement, we do not
seek to appeal to prejudice or stir up hatred. We aim
to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth, to enlighten those who love justice and to defend
our forefathers in the faith who were always and in all
places the real upholders of the liberties of the people
and without whose struggles and sacrifices we would
not now be in the enjoyment of these inestimable
blessings.

According to the time-honored teaching of the Cath-
olic Church, religious liberty guarantees to every man
the right to worship God according to the dictates
of his conscience without thereby incurring any civil
penalties or disabilities whatever. The Catholic
Church has not only proclaimed this doctrine from
the very beginning of her existence but she has,
moreover, faithfully adhered to it in practice all
through the course of her marvelous existence. No
one who is familiar with her career can gainsay
this statement. 'Tt is an axiom," wrote the late Arch-
bishop Kenrick of Baltimore, "that the worship of
God must be voluntary in order to be acceptable.
Liberty of conscience was claimed by Tertullian for
the Christians, as a right grounded on the very nature

384 The Facts About Luther

of religion. 'It is,' said he, 'a right and a natural
privilege, that each one should worship as he thinks
proper; nor can the religion of another injure or
profit him.' Neither is it a part of religion to compel
its adoption, since this should be spontaneous, not
forced, as even sacrifices are asked only of the cheer-
ful giver. The duty of worshiping God conformably
to His revealed will being manifest, every interfer-
ence with its discharge is a violation of the natural
rights which man possesses to fulfill so solemn an
obligation. The use of force to compel compliance
with this duty, is likely to result in mere external
conformity, which, without the homage of the heart,
is of no value whatever." This is the uniform teaching
of the Catholic Church. *Tf at any time," as Cardinal
Gibbons states, ''encroachments on these sacred rights
of man were perpetrated by professing members of
the Catholic faith, these wrongs, far from being sanc-
tioned by the Church, were committed in palpable
violation of her authority."

Luther was by no means ignorant of this teaching
and practice of the ancient Church, which he singled
out for abuse and misrepresentation. During his
preparation for the priesthood and after his ordina- *
tion, he familiarized himself with all that was to be
known on the important topic. He knew as well as
any priest or layman of his day that, whilst Christ,
His Apostles and their legitimate successors in the
Divine mission of teaching and preaching the truths
of revelation, enjoined obedience on all, under the
penalty of being ranked with heathens and publicans,
they, however, did not intend and never meant to
stifle or to crush all rational liberty and all rational
investigation. He knew that their insistence on the
acceptance of the eternal verities had for purpose the
cultivation of the truest and highest independence of
conscience and of thought by perfect submission to
God's teaching, thus saving men from being "tossed
about by every wind of doctrine," and that personal
freedom of thought and fallible judgment in religious

Free- Will and Liberty of Conscience 285

matters leads inevitably to the destruction of "the
faith once delivered to the saints." The "Truth," as
St. John says, "shall set you free." Luther knew
and, in his earlier days, taught and insisted that in
obeying the Church and her authorized ambassadors,
men obeyed Him who founded and commanded her
to teach all things whatsoever He had directed. He
knew, too, that whilst in the clear, plain, explicit
teaching of revelation obedience was strictly enjoined
to preserve truth in all its original purity, in other
matters that were not essential, a reasonable latitude
was always wisely allowed. He knew all this, but
gradually becoming restless under the restraint of
Divine limitations, which he construed as servility of
intellect, and nursing the unwholesome thought that
men were absolutely free to decide by their private
judgment whether they would receive or reject the
eternal verities, he, conveniently, in his state of antago-
nism to Divine authority, forget his earlier beliefs,
and grew pugnacious, rebellious and seditious. No
longer willing to recognize and submit to the conserv-
ative principle of Church authority, which up to his
day held the religious world in the unity for which
Christ prayed and willed, this proud man forthwith
determined to oppose, persecute and malign the insti-
tution which Christ enjoined all to obey and respect
and to which during fifteen hundred years millions
upon millions of the brightest, ablest and the most in-
telligent minds had given glad and willing loyalty and
submission.

As had been the case with all other heresiarchs who
preceded him, Luther used the weapons of which
hell availed itself to inaugurate "sects" and "dissen-
sions," in order to burst asunder the time honored
bond of Christian unity. An adept in lying, which
every student knows he approved by his teaching and
example, he went forth in bold effrontery to make
his hearers believe that the Church had bound its
members hand and foot, body and soul, and that they
were not allowed even to reflect or think for them-

286 The Facts About Luther

selves. The time had come, he thought, to strike
and free mankind from what he called the degrading
yoke of the Papacy and to restore to them their
"Christian liberty." He told them that those who
professed the old religion were groaning under a worse
than Babylonian captivity and that all who would rally
under his banner of reform would be brought back
from exile into the beautiful land of Israel, there to
worship in freedom and in peace near the Sion of God.
In the desire to accomplish his wicked project he
never thought how like he was to Antichrist, the
one who sets up a false Christ or a false Christianity
or draws away many from the true. No. He thought
that the Pope, whom Jesus Christ made the head of His
society, was Antichrist; that the Church was ruthlessly
trampled under foot by his followers and especially by
his ministers; that the liberties of the world were en-
tirely crushed in Catholicism. The Church, her ruler,
her teachings, were all, according to him, corrupted;
and this instigator of revolt, who himself spumed
authority and declared the Decalogue had little or no
binding force on Christians, exhorted all to arise in
their strength to break their chains and to sever their
connection with Rome forever. The saving and re-
straining influence of Church authority was to be
spurned as wholly incompatible with freedom and each
one henceforth was encouraged to invest himself with
sovereign power and unrestricted liberty in dealing
with all matters of religion. Thus, under the enticing
name of freedom, men were promised that they would
realize the brightest visions of liberty and the blessing
of true and independent manhood.

But the credentials for all this? Did the new doc-
trine of private judgment, which was to bring about
"the emancipation of the human mind," result in the
blessings it announced with such a flourish of trum-
pets? Did the insurrection against the power estab-
lished by God in the spiritual order, wherein existed,
in principle and practice, true independence of con-
science and thought, compensate for the profound and

Free-Will and Liberty of Conscience 287

degrading subjection of the intellect and the adoption
of the thoughts and words of the impudent and low
buffoon, who dogmaiized in taverns amid the fumes
of beer and outraged in his fury that same liberty
he pretended to secure for his companions in rebel-
lion? Is it not true, as all ages attest, that whoever
throws off the yoke of legitimate authority will be
punished with slavery ; and the more legitimate the
authority, that is, marked with the Divine seal, the
more complete and degrading the servitude? Men
who refuse to obey God and those whom He author-
izes to rule in His name, are invariably led, as the
blind, by fools or bound by executioners. Mark how
all this was literally realized in the case of the Re-
former and his followers in rebellion against the Church
of God.

Luther stood before the world in the attitude of a
liberator, but when we draw near, we discover his
doctrine is license and his behavior its exemplifica-
tion. We were prepared to think, when he freed
himself and his blind foUovsrers from the duty of obedi-
ence to Rome and presented his "new gospel/*
proclaiming the principle of private judgment as the
broad basis of his system of Christian liberty, that
it would at least have guaranteed its followers real
freedom of thought and of judgment in all matters
of belief. Surely we might expect that after having
indignantly rejected the wise and wholesome principle
of Church authority as incompatible with liberty, he
would not attempt to enthrone again this self-same
principle in his new system of belief, much less to
impose it as an obligation on those whom he cajoled
and seduced to leave the Church of their fathers to
embrace one of his own making.

Yet this course, absurd and inconsistent as it mani-
festly proved, was the very one he adopted and the
one adopted, as Spalding says, "without one excep-
tion, by the numerous sects to which the Reformation
gave birth. If there be any truth in history, the
reformers v/ere themselves the most intolerant of men,

2S8 The Facts About Luther

not only towards the Catholic Church, but towards
each other. They could not brook dissent from the
crude notions on religion which they had broached.
Men might protest against the decisions of the Cath-
olic Church; but woe to them, if, following out their
own private judgment, they dared protest against the
self-constituted authority of the new-fangled sects."

The tyrannical and intolerant character of Luther,
the father of the Reformation, is a fact admitted by
all candid Protestant writers. Roscoe, for instance in
his "Life and Pontificate of Leo X," justly censures
"the severity with which Luther treated all those,
who unfortunately happened to believe too much on
the one hand, or too little on the other, and could
not walk steadily on the hair-breadth line which he
had presented." This distinguished writer, whose pen
has so glowingly depicted the bright literary age of
Leo X., makes the following appropriate remarks on
this glaring inconsistency: "Whilst Luther was
engaged in his opposition to the Church of Rome, he
asserted the right of private judgment with the confi-
dence and courage of a martyr. But no sooner had
he freed his followers from the chains of Papal domi-
nation, than he forged others in many respects equally
intolerable; and it was the employment of his latter
years to counteract the beneficial effects produced by
his former years."

For a time Luther v/as almost omnipotent and exer-
cised his self-constituted power to persecute with
relentless fury. No sooner, however, did his followers
in revolt recover from the first enchantment of his
personal influence and the intoxication of their insur-
rection against the Holy See, than they began to
quarrel with their leader and with each other, just,
we suppose, to give an object lesson in dissension and
illustrate practically their widely heralded and incon-
sistent system of liberty. Their controversies, bick-
erings and wranglines, all the result of their glorious
new go: pel of so-called Christian liberty, are matters

Free-Will and Liberty of Conscience 289

of historical record and put down to the shame of
Protestantism.

Luther set himself up against all law, restraint,
and ordinance, and his disciples soon followed his
example. As he attacked the most essential truths
of Christianity, we must not wonder that his followers,
trained in the principles of private interpretation, used
their right to construe the verities of religion as their
individual judgment dictated. The path to unity, which
freedom of thought and of judgment in matters of
religion was supposed to establish, was soon trodden
down and rendered desolate by the divergent views
of its misguided followers. In the work of construc-
tion its builders maliciously destroyed and recklessly
frittered away the eternal verities, so much so, that
scarcely one saving truth of revelation remained as
a basis of their behef. One and all rejected the
Church, "the pillar and the ground of the truth" ; one
and all spurned the authority of the Church's legiti-
mate head; one made God the author of sin; another
made the Almighty unalterably determine the ultimate
fate of each man beforehand from all eternity ; "one,"
to use the words of Luther in his letter to the Chris-
tians of Antwerp, ''rejected baptism ; another the
Eucharist; another strikes out revelation from his
creed ; one says this, the other that ; there are as many
sects as heads ; everybody wishes to be a prophet."
When the Founder of Protestantism saw his path
of unity winding in so many directions and his self-
assumed infallibility ignored, he grew disconsolate,
threatening and abusive. On page 292 of the
"Tischreden," we find what this man, who was sup-
posed to have freed his followers from the chains of
papal domination, thought of his false brothers and
fellow heretics who would no longer suffer his domi-
nation and intolerance. "If," he says, " they would
not listen to him, so much the worse for them ; in
the end, they would be seen with the worthies, whom
they resembled, all burning in Hell together." Surely

290 The Facts About Luther

no Pope of Rome was ever so uncharitable as to voice
such wholesale condemnation.

But the tyranny and intolerance of Luther did not
stop in mere denunciation of tliosc who dared to exer-
cise the liberty of differing from him in his opinions.
All who ventured to question his infallibility in
religious matters were made to feel the heavy weight
of his habitual and never-ceasing intolerant vengeance.
From the number of the many victims of his brutal
conduct, we will recall a few glaring examples. One
of the victims of Luther's violence was his most
favored disciple Melanchthon, a learned but weak,
timid, obsequious character. "This man was incapable
of bearing any contradiction," says his friend Baum-
gartner. ''He veered with every wind and whilst
timidly a disciple of the Reformer, he was secretly
a Calvinist." In a letter Melanchthon wrote to his
friend Camerarius, he tells of Luther's brutal conduct
towards him. "I am," he says, "in a state of servi-
tude, as if I was in the cave of Cyclops and often
do I think of making my escape." Deploring Luther's
outbursts of temper he says, 'T tremble when I think
of the passions of my master; they yield not in vio-
lence to the passions of Hercules." He testifies, more-
over, that Luther occasionally inflicted on him personal
chastisement. According to Goschler, this disciple
"gave himself up to all manner of oaths and contu-
melious speeches which dismayed every one." He
lacked, however, the courage to break the chains of
f^ervitude with which his cruel master had bound him
hand and foot. Happy, indeed, he would have been
had he followed the example of Staupitz, Ulenberg
and others among Luther's quondam friends, who
were wise in time and returned to Catholic unity, the
"City that could not be hid" containing "the light
of the world" to which the heresiarch had shut his
eyes.

Andrew Bodenstein, more generally known by the
name of Carlstadt, was another victim of Luther's
intolerance. According to Audin, this man's voca-

Free-Will and Liberty of Conscience 291

tion was to "blacken paper; to throw ink on the head
of Luther or his disciples, his delight and amusement."
In his study of the Bible, using his right of private
judgment, he reached totally different conclusions
from Luther as to the lawfulness of images, the real
presence, infant baptism and other questions. Having
the courage of his convictions, he began to disseminate
his special discoveries and tried to win proselytes to
his views arid opinions. This proceeding angered
Luther, who could brook no opposition. ''You are my
enemy, my adversary," said Luther to Carlstadt. "It
is true," retorted the other: "I am the adversary and
enemy of every one who will oppose God and fight
against Christ and the truth." "May I see you broken
on a wheel," said Luther on taking leave of him.
"And may you," retorted the latter, "break your neck
before you get out of the city." Luther never forgot
this unpleasant altercation with his old professor. In
the bitterness of his heart he there and then swore
vengeance against his antagonist and ever after left
nothing undone to have him banished from Witten-
berg, the citadel of the Reformation. His spite
followed his former disciple in his wanderings from
place to place. Reduced to the direst misery through
the never ceasing pursuit of Luther, Carlstadt wrote to
his friends Krautwald and Schwenkfeld, two Lutheran
theologians, to tell of his distress and said : "I shall
soon be forced to sell all, in order to support myself,
my clothes, my delf, all my furniture. No one takes
pity on me; and I fear that both I and my child shall
perish with hunger." Luther hunted "his enemy and
adversary," as he called Carlstadt, up and down the
country in the most relentless manner until finally the
victim of his abiding vengeance expired, a miserable
outcast, at Basle in Switzerland.

To these victims of Luther's intolerance we may add
Strigel, who was imprisoned for three years for main-
taining that "man was not a merely passive instrument
in the work of his conversion" ; Hardenberg, who was
banished from Saxony for having been guilty of some

292 The Facts About Luther

leaning towards the Calvinistic doctrines on the
Eucharist, and Zwingle and the Sacramentarians,
whom, Luther declared, "were heretics who had broken
away from him," and ''ministers of Satan, against
whom no exercise of severity, however great, would be
excessive."

Luther not only persecuted individuals, but also
large bodies of dissenters who organized themselves
to resist his authority and disseminate doctrines
opposed to his. Prominent amongst the rebels from
the Lutheran ranks were the Anabaptists, who received
their name from their custom of baptizing over again
those who had been already baptized in infancy. John
Miinzer, the leader of the sect, and his preachers gave
themselves out for prophets in Thuringia and other
places, and ran like madmen through the streets of
the cities and towns exhorting and summoning all to
be re-baptized. In their reckless propaganda they
sacked churches, destroyed altars and trod under foot
the images of Christ and His saints. Not only men,
but even women ran wildly from place to place and
flung themselves on the ground cursing and praying
by turns. The rabble were invited to join "the
thousand years' reign of Christ" they imagined had
come when ''God would destroy all tyrants from off
the face of the earth." They promised possession of
every enjoyment to all who would join their ranks
and help in downing all constituted authority. A
frightful condition of things ensued. Polygamy even
was introduced and the most scandalous excesses were
openly commited without fear or shame. None of their
prophets, Miinzer, Mattiezen, a baker of Haarlem,
Bockhold, a tailor from Leyden, whilst they agreed
in putting forward a free inquiry into the meaning
of the Bible as the fundamental principle of their
teaching, would tolerate any other interpretation than
his own.

Luther could not endure this new sect, which his
teaching on private judgment brought into being.
He manifested his opposition toward it in a synod

Free- Will and Liberty of Conscience 293

convened at Hamburg on the 7th of August, 1536,
composed of deputies sent by all the cities which
had separated from the Mother Church. The object
of the synod was to devise means for exterminating
the adherents of Miinzer and "his new religion. The
animus of this synod is manifested in one of its decrees,
which runs as follows : ''Whoever rejects infant
baptism, whoever trangresses the orders of the magis-
trates, whoever preaches against taxes, whoever teaches
the community of goods, whoever usurps the priest-
hood, whoever holds unlawful assemblies, whoever
sins against faith, shall be punished with death. . . .
As for the simple people who have not preached or
administered baptism, but who were seduced to permit
themselves to frequent the assemblies of the heretics,
if they do, not wish to renounce Anabaptism, they
shall be scourged, punished with perpetual exile and
even with death, if they return three times to the
place whence they have been expelled.'' Not a single
protest was raised against this cruel decree. It
received the unanimous approbation of the assembled
delegates. When the bigamist, Philip of Hesse, was
apprised of the intolerant views of the synod, he
remonstrated wtih Luther, but to no purpose. The
excommunicated Saxon monk sent the Landgrave a
letter to soothe his scruples of conscience on the
severity of the official decree of the synod and therein
openly defended persecution on Scriptural grounds.
"Whoever," he wrote, "denies the doctrines of our
faith, aye, even one article which rests on the Scrip-
ture, or the authority of the universal teaching of the
Church, must be punished severely. He must be
treated not only as a heretic, but also as a blasphemer
of the holy name of God. It is not necessary to lose
time in disputes with such people; they are to be
condemned as impious blasphemers." No comments
are here needed. Luther's doctrine, as given to this
synod, it is obvious, is entirely opposed to freedom of
conscience and in favor of religious persecution.
Every student of history knows that Luther treated

294 The Facts About Luther

with an insufferable arrogance and downright intoler-
ance all who refused to submit to his wild, erratic
and destructive pronouncements. He was as intolerant
towards the leaders and followers of the new sects
that sprang up and differed from him, as he was
against the Mother Church and her adherents. "As
I am now," he says, "near the grave, I will bring
this testimony and this glory with me before the
judgment seat of my dear Lord and Saviour, Jesus
Christ, that with all my heart I have condemned and
avoided the enthusiasts and the enemies of the Sacra-
ments, Carlstadt, Zwingle, Oecolampad, Stenckfeld,
and their disciples in Zurich and wherever they may
be." "I would," he goes on to say, "far sooner be
cut into pieces or burnt a hundred times over, than
be of one opinion or of one mind with Stenckfeld,
Zwingle, Carlstadt, Oecolampad, and whoever else
they may be, the wicked enthusiasts, or agree with
their teaching." Of Zwingle and his colleague,
Oecolampad, he wrote that "they had a devilish, super-
devilish, blasphemous heart and lying lips." All this
and more of the same kind of reproach showed the
love the reformer entertained for those who deserted
his cause and inaugurated sects of their own making.
Zwingle replied to Luther and told him, "We do thee
no injustice when we reproach and condemn thee as
a worse betrayer and denier of Christ than the ancient
heretic Marcion." Zurich also answered the leader
of revolt by the mouth of Campanus : "It is as
certain that Luther is a devil, as that God is God."
But this glorious defender of religious liberty is
not satisfied merely with persecuting those who refused
to submit to his authority and infallibiHty. Just to
show how dear to him was the principle of liberty
of conscience, he inaugurated a campaign of intoler-
ance against the Jews such as was never surpassed
in severity or cruelty before or since. Not content
with calling them by the most opprobrious names, "ass-
heads," "lying mouths," "devils' children," "devils,"
"young devils, damned to hell," he consoles himself

Free-Will and Liberty of Conscience 295

with the thought that ''they will be torniented, not
in upper hell nor in middle hell, but in hell's deepest
depths." He tells how they ought to be treated by
Christian princes : how he would treat them, if he
had the power. "What," he writes, **are we to do
with this rejected, damned people of the Jews?....
I will give my honest advice."

"First, their synagogues or schools are to be set on
fire and whatever will not burn, is to be covered and
heaped over with earth, so that never again shall one
find stone or cinder of them left.

"Secondly, their houses are likewise to be broken
down and destroyed, for they do exactly the same in
them as they also do in their schools. Therefore they
may perhaps be allowed a roof or a stable over them,
as the Gypsies are, in order that they may know they
are not the lords in our country as they boast to
be....

"Thirdly, all their Prayer Books and Talmuds are
to be taken away from them, in which such idolatry,
lies, curses and blasphemies are taught.

"Fourthly, their Rabbis are to be forbidden under
pain of capital punishment to teach any more. . . .

"Fifthly, the Jews are to be entirely denied legal
protection when using the roads in the country, for
they have no business to be in the country. . . .

"Sixthly, usury is to be forbidden them, and all their
cash and their treasures of silver and gold are to be
taken away from them and to be put aside to be
preserved. And for this reason, all that they have
(as was said above), they have stolen and robbed
from us through their usury."

Further on in his work "About the Jews and their
Lies," edition 1543, he addresses himself to the princes
in these words : Burn their synagogues. Forbid them
all that I have mentioned above. Force them to work
and treat them with every kind of severity, as Moses
did in the desert and slew three thousand. . . .If that
is no use, we must drive them away like mad dogs,
in order that we may not be partakers of their

596 The Facts About Luther

abominable blasphemy and of all their vices, and in
order that we may not deserve the anger of God and
be damned with them. I have done my duty. Let
every one see how he does his. I am excused.'*

The implacable hatred of Luther towards the Jews
stands out in bold and unfavorable contrast with the
consistent, uniform, kind consideration of the Cath-
olic Church and her. rulers towards that oppressed
people. It is well known how, in the Middle Ages, the
Jews were constantly and uniformly protected by the
Popes, even in Rome itself, where they had, and still
have at the present time, a special quarter of the city
allotted to them. Rome has always been the asylum
and home of this oppressed people, as Voltaire him-
self acknowledges, and Avignon, because it was for
a long time the residence of the Popes, shares with
the Eternal City this honorable distinction.

The Jews themselves bear witness to this fact. In
the "great Jewish Sanhedrin" held in Paris in the year
1807, and in the session of the fifth of February of
that year, the following resolutions were placed upon
record of that Jewish assembly: ''At divers times the
Roman Popes have given protection and refuge in
their territories to the persecuted Jews from all parts
of Europe. Towards the end of the seventh century
St. Gregory defended them in all Christian countries.
In the tenth century the Spanish Bishops resisted the
ill treatment of the Jews by the people, and Pope
Alexander 11. congratulated them on their courageous
attitude. In the twelfth century St. Bernard defended
them, and Innocent II. and Alexander III. protected
them. In the thirteenth century Gregory IX. averted
a threatening disaster against them in England, as
well as in France and Spain, as this Pope commanded,
imder the penalty of excommunication, that no one
do violence to their conscience or interfere with their
holy days. Clement V. facilitated for them the means
of education. Clement VI. gave them an asylum in
Avignon, when they were persecuted in the whole of
Europe. It would be easy to enumerate many other

Free-Will and Liberty of Conscience 297

kind promulgations in favor of the Jews. The people
of Israel, ever unhappy and almost ever persecuted,
never had the opportunity nor the means to acknowl-
edge their gratefulness for the many benefits received.
Since 1800 years, this is the first opportunity aflforded
to express the feelings of our heart. . . .The deputies
of the French Empire and of the Kingdom of Italy
in the Hebrew Synod, full o*f gratitude for the many
kindnesses and protection granted the Jews by the
Catholic clergy, do resolve that the expression of our
feelings be incorporated in the records of this day,
that it forever remain in authentic testimony of the
gratitude of the Jewish people." Lettre aux Isrelites
sur I'attitude qui leur convient de prendre a I'egard de
la souverainete temporelle du Pape.)

Another testimony to the attitude of the Church
and her head towards the oppressed Israelites was
furnished in the reply of Benedict XV. to the Ameri-
can Jewish Committee, which in a letter to the Pope
under date of December 30, 191 5, cited instances in
Poland by which Jews ''have been marked for special
persecution and have been subjected to oppressive
measures not borne by compatriots of other creeds."
Among other things the petitioners wrote : "With all
due veneration we now approach the Supreme Pontiff
for succor in this the bitter hour of our need, knowing
the exemplary humanity for which your Holiness is
justly distinguished. . . .We recall with admiration and
gratitude that on many occasions in the past some of
the revered predecessors of your Holiness have, under
like conditions, extended protection to those of the
Jewish faith in the interest of right and justice.
Appreciating the transcendent importance which the
entire civilized world attaches to any utterance from
so exalted a source of morality and wisdom as that
which your Holiness represents, we confidently express
the hope that timely action be taken by the Vatican
to the end that the suffering under which millions of
our brethren in faith are weighed down may be termi-
nated by an act of that humanity to which your Holt-

298 The Facts About Luther

ness is so passionately devoted, and that the cruel
intolerance and the unjust prejudice which have been
aroused against them may forever vanish before this
glorious exercise of your supreme moral and spiritual
power."

To this communication, signed by the most promi-
nent representatives of the Jewish people of America,
the Pope's Cardinal Secretary of State replied in a
letter ^'breathing the Christ-like spirit of peace and
love, reminding all of the principles of natural right
to respect all men as brethren, which should be
observed and respected in relation to the children of
Israel, as it should be to all men, for it would not
conform to justice and religion itself, to derogate
therefrom, solely because of a difference of religious
faith."

Herman Bernstein, commenting on this letter in
The American Hebrew, says : ''Among all the Papal
letters ever issued with regard to the Jews through-
out the history of the Vatican, there is no statement
that equals this direct, unmistakable plea for equality
for the Jews and against prejudice on religious
grounds. The Bull issued by Innocent IV., declaring
the Jews innocent of the charge of using Christian
blood for ritual purposes, while a remarkable docu-
ment, was, after all, merely a statement of fact,
whereas, the present statement by Pope Benedict XV.
is a plea against religious prejudice and persecution."

All this shows Rome's attitude towards the
oppressed. How different it is from that of Luther
as evidenced by his own utterances in his infamous
work "About the Jews and their Lies" which brand
him beyond power of contradiction as an oppressor,
a tyrannical anti-Semite.

A volume might be filled with indubitable facts to
prove the intolerant spirit of Luther and of the various
sects which his rebellion originated. The quarrels, hos-
tilities and jealousies that constantly arose among one
and all, made them a prey to the fiercest dissensions.
They anathematized and persecuted each other with the

Free-Will and Liberty of Conscience 299

most virulent hatred and indulged in the coarsest and
vilest invective. The ultra-Lutherans and the Melanch-
thonians mutually denounced each other and even re-
fused to unite in the rites of communion and burial. The
Flaccianists and the Strigelians, the Osiandrians and
the Stancarians and many other new sects persecuted
one another with relentless fury. The Lutherans,
according to Professor Fecht, denounced and excluded
the reformed Calvinists from salvation. The Calvinists
roused up the people against the Lutherans, who in
turn mildly and charitably designated their enemies as
"the sons of the devil." Zwingle complained of
Luther's intolerance when he was the victim of its
violence, but when he became almost omnipotent in
Switzerland, he and his followers threw the poor Ana-
baptists into the Rhine, inclosed in sacks, and mocked
them at the same time with the inhuman taunt that
"they were merely baptizing them by their own favorite
method of immersion."

The other reformers were not a whit better than
Luther in reg^ard to toleration. The iniury done their
cause by their bickerings, disunions and hostilities did
not escape their own notice. Calvin, for instance, fully
aware of the disastrous results accruing from the
specious principles of universal liberty by which the
reformers had allured multitudes to their standard,
wrote to Melanchthon : "It is indeed important that
posterity should not know of our differences ; for it
is indescribably ridiculous that we, who are in oppo-
sition to the whole world, should be, at the very begin-
ning of the Reformation, at issue among ourselves."
Melanchthon wrote in answer that "the Elbe with all
its waters could not furnish tears enough to weep over
the miseries of the distracted Reformation."

The whole fabric of the Reformation threatened
to fall to pieces at its very rise through the internal
divisions and differences which Calvin in his letter to
Melanchthon was so anxious "posterity should not
know." One thing alone was able to save it from
destruction, namely, the civil power whose influence

300 The Facts About Luther

and assistance the leaders in religious rebellion very
soon learned to seek and obtain. The lawless anarchy
into which Protestantism in its various forms had
sunk made it necessary, if it would survive, to place
the new religions under the protection of the degen-
erate princes of the times, who, as Melanchthon admits,
**had in view neither the purification of Christianity,
the diffusion of learning, the exalting of a creed, nor
the improvement of morals; but only interests that
were miserable, profane, and earthly, adjudicating to
themselves the treasures of the cloisters and religiously
keeping the jewels of the churches." The influence
of the leaders of reform being on the wane owing to
their dissensions, quarrels and intolerance, they saw
clearly that their only hope of promoting further their
power and ascendency was to invoke the interposition
and backing of the temporal power without which
their movement would be as inevitably suppressed as
had been the commotions of the Hussities at a previous
period.

Luther, who was by no means, as Frederic von
Schlegel says, "an advocate for democracy," began to
''assert the absolute power of rulers" and "zealously
upheld," as Menzel, the Protestant historian says,
"their princely power, the divine right of which, he
even made an article of faith." "Thus," he continues,
"through Luther's well-meant policy, the Reforma-
tion naturally became that of the princes, and, con-
sequently, instead of being the aim, was converted
into a means of their policy." Not satisfied with
catering to the vanity of the princes, Luther, who in
his heart despised dominion and blasphemed majesty,
appealed to their cupidity by promising them the
spoils of sacrilege. "Your power," he said to the
German princes, "emanates from God alone ; you have
no master on this earth; you owe nothing to the
Pope. Mind your own affairs and let him mind his.
He is the Antichrist predicted by the prophet Daniel ;
he is the rnan of sin. . . .You, princes and nobles,
owe him neither first fruits nor services for the abbeys

Free- Will and Libeuty of Conscience 301

he has bestowed upon yon. The abbeys are as much
your property as the game that runs on your lands.
The monasteries in which these pious hypocrites Hve
are dens of iniquity, which you must root out, if
you would have God bless you in this life or in the
next." (Audin, Vol. II, i86, i88.)

At the beginning of Luther's rebellion, he denied
the principle of authority, then encouraged indi-
viduahsm, and, finally, promoted resistance to estab-
lished order and rule. When this centrifugal principle,
which is the very basis of the Reformation, brought on
insurbordination, uprising and popular revolts, he
and other leaders went to the other extreme and
justified absolutism and the use of despotic means in
the government of the people. So Protestantism
tended inevitably to destroy popular rights and
liberty, and, at the same time, it strengthened the
arbitrary rule of princes, who lording it with
rods of iron over both the bodies and souls of their
subjects, crushed out eventually all freedom, both civil
and rehgious.

Hallam, who lived and died a Prostestant, furnishes
the following testimony in his great work, *'The Intro-
duction to the History of Literature," Vol. I, p. 200,
Sec. 34. He says, "The adherents to the Church of
Rome have never failed to cast two reproaches on
those who left them ; one, that the Reform was brought
about by intemperate and calumnious abuse, by out-
rages of an excited populace or by the tyranny of
princes ; the other, that after stimulating the most
ignorant to reject the authority of their Church, it
instantly withdrew this liberty of judgment and
devoted all, who presumed to swerve from the line
drawn by law, to virulent obloquy, and sometimes to
bonds and death. These reproaches, it may be a shame
to us to own, can be uttered and cannot be refuted."

The favorite plan of establishing and reinforcing
the Reformation when it began to wane and totter
was by violence on the ruins of Catholic institutions.
The Reformers supported the princes in trampling on

302 The Facts About Luther

the liberties of the people, and, in return, the princes
supported the new beliefs. The result was that abso-
lute monarchy prevailed wherever the Protestant
party dominated. Jurieu, the celebrated Calvinist
minister, quoted by Audin and Alzog, makes this
acknowledgmicnt : ''Geneva, Switzerland, and the free
cities, the electors, and the German princes, England,
Scotland, Sweden and Denmark got rid of Popery
and established the Reformation by the aid of the
civil power."

The vast majority of the people wanted to be and
remain Catholics, but the State forced the new
religions on them in these countries against their
will, and progress was made only by the influence
of civil power. The priests of the Catholic Church
were killed off and hunted like criminals; the laity
were converted by the rack, the thumbscrew, the dark
cell, the peine forte et dure, fines, imprisonment, ban-
ishment, stripes, the head-man's axe, the gallows and
the disemboweling knife. Their property was con-
fiscated and convents, abbeys, priories, monasteries,
churches, passed into the hands of greedy potentates
and their servile courtiers. Such were the methods and
means invariably resorted to by the leaders of
Protestantism to foist the new religion on the people.
Was this toleration or oppression?

Plain men may well look round them, and ask if
these things can be. But all this is no hideous mis-
quotation or miisrepresentation. The facts are only
too evident. Non-Catholic writers, as a rule, describe
Luther and his work in the most glowing and favor-
able terms. Many others, however, better informed
and more enlightened, have, in all fairness and candor,
humbly apprehended that the free exercise of private
judgment was most heartily abhorred by the first
Reformers, except only where the persons who
assumed it happened to be exactly of their way of
thinking.

The late Protestant bishop Warburton vs^as not
afraid to give the following character of the pretended

Free-Will and Liberty of Conscience 303

advocates of civil and religious freedom; ''The
Reformers, Luther, Calvin, and their followers, under-
stood so little in what true Christianity consisted that
they carried with them into the reformed churches,
that very spirit of persecution which had driven them
from the Church of Rome." The Protestant historian
Hallam also tells the truth when he says in his "Con-
stitution History," page 63 : "Persecution is the deadly
original sin of the Reformed churches, that which
cools every honest man's zeal for their cause, in pro-
portion as his reading becomes extensive."

Gibbon, in his "Rise and Fall of the Roman
Empire," Ch. LIV, says : "The patriot reformers were
ambitious of succeeding the tyrants whom they
dethroned. They imposed, with equal vigor, their
creeds and confessions. They asserted the right of
the magistrate to punish the heretic with death."

Strickland in her "Queens of England," says : "It
is a lamentable trait in human nature that there was
not a sect established at the Reformation that did not
avow, as part of their religious duty, the horrible
necessity of destroying some of their fellow-creatures
on account of what they severally termed heretical
tenets."

Guizot, in his "History of Civilization," pp. 261-
262, says : "The Reformation of the sixteenth century
was not aware of the true principles of intellectual
liberty. . . .On the one side it did not know or respect
all the rights of human thought ; at the very moment
it was demanding these rights for itself it was violating
them towards others. On the other hand, it was
unable to estimate the rights of authority in the matters
of reason."

Macaulay, in his "Essays" : Hampden, says : "Rome
had at least prescription on its side. But Protestant
intolerance, despotism in an upstart sect, infallibility
claimed by guides who acknowledge that they had
passed the greater part of their lives in error, restraints
imposed on the liberty of private judgment at the
pleasure of rulers who could vindicate their own pro-

304 The Facts About Luther

ceedings only by asserting the liberty of private judg-
ment— these things could not long be borne. Those
who had pulled down the crucifix could not long
continue to persecute for the surplice. It required
no great sagacity to perceive the inconsistency and
dishonesty of men who, dissenting from almost all
Christendom, would suffer none to dissent from them-
selves; who demanded freedom of conscience, yet
refused to grant it; who execrated persecution, yet
persecuted ; who urged reason against the authority
of one opponent, and authority against the reason of
another."

Lecky, in his ''Rationalism in Europe," Vol. I, p.
51, ed. 1870, says: ''What shall we say of a church
that was but a thing of yesterday; a church that had
as yet no services to show, no claims upon the grati-
tude of mankind ; a church that was by profession
the creature of private judgment, and was in reality
generated by the intrigues of a corrupt court, which
nevertheless suppressed by force a worship that multi-
tudes deemed necessary to salvation ; which by all
her organs and with all her energies persecuted those
who clung to the religion of their fathers? What
shall we say of a religion which comprised at most,
but a fourth part of the Christian world, and which
the first explosion of private judgment had shivered
into countless sects, which was nevertheless so per-
vaded by the spirit of dogmatism that each of these
sects asserted its distinctive doctrines with the same
confidence, and persecuted with the same unhesitating
violence, as a church which was venerable with the
homage of twelve centuries?. . . .So strong and so
general was its intolerance that for some time it may,
I believe, be truly said that there were more instances
of partial toleration being advocated by Rome..* Cath-
olics than by orthodox Protestants."

The foregoing quotations from reliable Protestant
authors show how the Reformers believed in the rights
of conscience and how they practised reli^ous liberty.
It is, moreover, a remarkable fact, that their followers

Free- Will and Liberty of Conscience 305

have been guilty of persecution wherever they have had
the power, not only against the Catholic Church, but
against one another; and their intolerance, though
greatly mitigated, is even at the present enlightened
day far from being extinct.

But have not Catholics, who boast that persecution
is not, and never has been a doctrine of their Church,
persecuted in times past? We do not deny it; but
we answer that they did so as individuals and in direct
opposition to the teaching of their Church. "Yet
every' impartial person,'' as Abp. Spalding says, "must
allow that the circumstances under which they perse-
cuted were not so aggravated, nor so wholly without
excuse, as those under which they were themselves
persecuted by Protestants. The former stood on the
defensive, while the latter were in almost every
instance the first aggressors. The Catholics did but
repel violence by violence, when their property, their
altars and all they held sacred, were rudely invaded
by the new religionists, under pretext of reform. Their
acts of severity were often deemed necessary meas-
ures of precaution against the deeds of lawless vio-
lence, which everyv/here marked the progress of
reform. They did but seek the privilege of retain-
ing quietly the religion of their fathers, which
the reformers would fain have wrested from them
by violence. They were the older and they were in
possession. Could it be expected that they would
yield without a strugg^le all that they held most dear
and most sacred? There were extenuating: circum-
stances, which, though they might not wholly justify
their intolerance, yet greatly mitieated its malice ;
while the reformers could certainly allege no such
pretext in self-vindication.''

The Catholic Church has always favored religious
liberty and is to-day its most ardent defender and
supporter. Facts are more convincing than argu-
ments and Catholics are willing that, as to religious
liberty, they be put to the test laid down by the
Bible ; "By their fruits ye shall know them." It is

306 The Facts About Luther

a fact that in this day and hour the Cathohc coun-
tries of Europe are far in advance of the Protestant
countries in respect to religious independence. There is
not one Catholic government on that continent which
persecutes its subjects for conscience's sake and there is
not one Protestant country in which Catholics enjoy
equal rights and privileges with the members of the
established religion. In England, Catholics are
merely tolerated; in Switzerland, they suffer from
religious disabilities ; in Sweden, Holland, Denmark
and Prussia, their conscientious convictions are dis-
criminated against ; and as for Russia, their treatment
is notoriously contrary to the demands of justice and
of Christian charity. On the contrary in all Catholic
countries, without any exception, where there is not
and never was a governmentally established church,
the great principle of universal toleration is sedulously
exercised, and all. Catholics and Protestants alike,
enjoy the blessings not only of religious but of civil
rights and privileges. There is no room under Cath-
olic teaching and principles for intolerance and perse-
cution.

The accusation that Catholic doctrine teaches that
no faith is to be kept with heretics is totally unfounded.
The religion of Catholics obliges them to respect the
rights of others, and any apprehensions as to the dan-
ger of their violating their sacred duty towards those of
an opposite faith, are the result of vain fears, which
no honest mind ought to harbor. All Catholics desire
is to live together with their Protestant neighbors
quietly and peaceably, each and all worshipping God
as their conscience honestly directs.

Catholics, it should be remembered, were the first in
America to proclaim and to practise civil and religious
liberty. While all the English colonies in the New
World were practising persecution, while Protestants
of one sect were everywhere intolerant of every other
sect, the colony established by Lord Baltimore in
Maryland granted civil and religious liberty to all who
professed different beliefs. From this abode of happi-

Free- Will and Liberty of Conscience 307

ness and good will towards all, the principle of freedom
spread until there was hardly a colony on this broad
continent that did not make universal toleration a
settled law of the land. The glory of being the first
to raise the banner of civil and religious liberty in
this country belongs to Catholics and none can deny
or rob them of it. This glory is all the greater,
because at that very time the Puritans of New England
and the Episcopalians of Virginia were busily engaged
in persecuting their brother Protestant for conscience's
sake ; and the former were moreover enacting proscrip-
tive ''blue laws" and ''hanging witches." Ever since
that far off day and before, when Columbus planted
the Cross, the emblem of Christianity, upon American
soil, Catholics have stood side by side with men of
every creed in every human effort to make this the
grandest and the freest nation in the world. Through-
out all these years the country grew and developed
because there has been good fellowship, mutual respect
and hearty co-operation for the common good.

But, alas, here in the morning of the twentieth
century, here at a time when we have reached a perhaps
unparalleled plane of general intelligence, at a time
when we have lived together as neighbors and
friends long enough to become well acquainted ;
when we have mingled together in social and
business and fraternal Hfe, here in such an era,
we have thousands of misguided men foisting them-
selves upon peaceful communities, scattering the seed
of discord and religious hate and pouring forth their
vile abuse of everything Catholic. They are not
content to have civil and religious liberty for them-
selves, but desire to deny it to Catholics, as is proved
in many instances, especially by the fact that no Cath-
olic can be elected President of the United States,
no matter how competent he may be. To advance
their wicked purposes, they go about with flag in
hand, which they stain with their dirty fingers, to
form Know-Nothing societies like the Patriotic Order
of Sons of America, the junior Order of United

308 The Facts About Luther

American Mechanics, the Order of Independent
Americans, the Luther League, the Guardians of
Liberty, etc., etc., all pretending to be patriotic, but
really persecuting and bigoted ; all pretending to sup-
port American institutions, but really trampling on
the Constitution, which prohibits the establishment of
any. religion or the requirement of any religious test
for public office ; all pretending to favor religious
liberty, but really plotting to violate it whenever Cath-
olics are concerned.

The flame of bigotry, which these malicious societies
are now so vigorously fanning throughout the length
and breadth of this great country, cannot last for
long. Their creatures are being swatted on all sides.
Ex- President Taft has dubbed them "Cockroaches"
and President Wilson brands them as "Swashbucklers."
Only ignorant fanatics are duped by the unclean birds
of prey. Our Protestant fellow-citizens are level-
headed enough to see that Catholics are just as keen
for their country's welfare and glory as they them-
selves, just as ready to defend it, work for it and
shed their blood for it as any in the land. They
recognize that there is no just ground for any oppo-
sition to Catholics, and as they are not fools they are
not going to swallow the foul, calumnious, and filthy
accusations against Catholics by which bigots, knaves
and fanatics would destroy the mutual trust and
understanding between citizens of a common country
and with a common cause. Their mentality is still
sound and their hearts are in the right place. They
believe that all citizens irrespective of nationality
and creed must be friends, and to them no other
relation is conceivable. They are aware of the specific
objects of the evil doers, their insincerity and the
utter lack of religion that exists among them and so
they have come to consider the promoters of bigotry,
the calamity howler, the alarmist and those editors
who are bent on filling their pockets by publishing the
lying and the riot-breeding literature that stirs up
hatred and enmity between Protestantism and the

Free-Will and Liberty of Conscience 309

Catholic Church, as a menace to civilization, to govern-
ment, to the brotherly feeling that all of all faiths
should strive to cultivate.

The end of the hellish work of hatred is in sight,
and all decent, fair-minded and intelligent Protestants
are daily becoming more disgusted with the methods
of vilification, mendacity and slanderous insinuation,
which most of the breeders of hatred get from Luther,
who was dismissed from the Catholic Church because
he preached heresy and practised iniquity. The best
amongst non-Catholics are determined to be no longer
taken in by such frauds and gross swindlers and they
feel the time has come for a closer union of Protes-
tants and Catholics to combat the real evils of the
day, the evils that are bringing disaster to our Amer-
ican civilization. "The great enemy which the State,
which Catholics and Protestants alike have to resist
and vanquish by education," as Dr. Brownson remarks,
'is the irreligion, pantheism, atheism, and immorality,
disguised as secularism, or under the specious names
of science, humanity, free-religion, and free-love,
which not only strike at all Christian faith and Chris-
tian morals, but at the family, the State, and civilized
society itself."

The learned publicist further remarks : "The State
can not regard this enemy with indiflPerence. . . .The
American State is not infidel or godless, and is bound
always to recognize and actively aid religion as far
as in its power. Having no spiritual or theological
competency, it has no right to undertake to say what
shall or shall not be the religion of its citizens; it
must accept, protect, and aid the religion its citizens
see proper to adopt, and without partiality for the
religion of the majority any more than the religion
of the minority; for in regard to religion the rights
and powers of minorities and majorities are equal.
The State is under the Christian law, and it is bound
to protect and enforce Christian morals and its laws,
whether assailed by Mormonism, spiritism, free-lovism,
pantheism, or atheism.

310 The Facts About Luther

"The modem world has strayed far from this doc-
trine, which in the early history of this country nobody
questioned. The departure may be falsely called
progress and boasted of as a result of 'the march of
intellect'; but it must be arrested, and men must be
recalled to the truths they have left behind, if repub-
lican government is to be maintained and Christian
society preserved. Protestants who see and deplore
the departure from the old landm.arks will find them-
selves unable to arrest the downward tendency without
our aid, and little aid shall we be able to render them
unless the Church be free to use the public schools
— that is, her portion of them — to bring up her chil-
dren in her own faith and train them to be good
Catholics. There is a recrudescence of paganism, a
growth of subtle and disguised infidelity, which it will
require all that both they and we can do to arrest."

It then behooves all who love liberty to stand
together unto the destruction of the enemies of our
glorious republic.

The descendants of Luther and the modern exem-
plars of his spirit of hatred would do well to remember
that the Catholic Church was born, brought up, and
maintained through persecution. If, indeed, she had
no longer adversaries, her members would need to
despair of the promises of her Divine Founder. It
would be impossible for her to pass through severer
ordeals than she has in her past and especially at
the time of the so-called Reformation. Experience
has proved, over and over again, that the powers of
hell, however determined in doing so, cannot extir-
pate Catholicism by force from the midst of the
peoples and the nations. The Church thrives under
persecution, for to suffer for Christ's sake is a signal
honor, and martyrdom is a crown of glory. The
Christians, as Lactantius says, "conquer the world not
by slaying but by being slain." Men are so constituted
that they do not really love that which costs them no
sacrifice. Just as the soldier, who has suffered for
his country, holds it in deeper affection, so the child

Free- Will and Liberty of Conscience 311

of the Church loves her the more if he has had to
suffer on her account. As long as struggle and oppo-
sition continue the Church will live and flourish. There
is so much vitality in her that all her haters can
harm her little. Ever so many, Nero, Julian, Henry
VIII., Luther, Calvin, Zwingle and their deluded imi-
tators, have gone to their graves after living a life
of fierce opposition to everything Catholic, and yet
the Church lives on, proving over and over the state-
ment of Gamaliel to the Jewish council; *'If this be
the work of men, it will come to naught. But if it be
of God, you cannot overthrow it." The temporary
harm, which those inflict who indulge in attacks
against the Church, of whose history, teaching and
precepts they are ignorant, is more than offset by the
ultimate good. Divine vitality permeates the whole
Church and no persecution, however frightful or
excruciating, can prevail against her. The Master is
with her. The enemy cannot conquer. She is Heaven-
protected and will remain, in spite of all opposition,
to the end of time to preach to mankind, as she ever
did in the past, the inestimable blessings of civil and
religious liberty.

CHAPTER IX.
Luther as a Religious Reformer.

EVER since the day when the Saxon monk*s hammer
on the church door at Wittenberg sounded the
signal. for rebellion against spiritual and ecclesiastical
authority, Luther's admirers have persistently and uni-
formly held him up before the world as a "great
religious reformer." Their hero in a highly sensitized
imagination fancied that he had a direct Divine mission
to reform the Church of Christ, and, that, as he said,
he ''was by God's revelation called to be a sort of
anti-pope." Men after his own heart, deluded, proud
in intellect and revolutionary in tendency, gave willing
credence to the self-asserted prerogative, and, believing
without question his pretended claim to be true, they
blindly chanted his praises and invited all to unite with
them in paying him tribute. In all courtesy, but with
entire frankness, we make bold to say that did these
men make a profound and exhaustiA^e study of Luther's
writings and acts, they would soon cease their lauda-
tions and discover for themselves how his life and
teaching were distinctly and openly at variance with
any conception of a "God-inspired man" and a true
"spiritual leader."

The title "religious reformer" is a proud and signifi-
cant one. To wear it with honor, it is not enough merely
to apply' it to oneself; nor is it becoming in others to
confer it on any one unless the subject is distinguished
for virtue and the purpose he has in view is the restora-
tion of discipline relaxed, as well as the renewal of the
standard of holy living to its pristine purity. From the
beginning all who have arisen from the midst of their
brethren charged with a distinct message from God to
assail corruption and to raise men from earth to heaven,
began their noble and sacred mission by first improving
and reforming themselves. It is rightly expected that
the moral leader of his generation should walk in that

Luther as a Religious Reformer 313

"holiness without which no man shall see the Lord."
The true reformer, as Anderdon remarks, '"should be
as Elias, or the Baptist, in his moral height and per-
sonal detachment ; as Nathan, in his rebuke of
licentious and murderous sin ; as Daniel in his fastings,
in his self -affliction, in his tearful supplications for
God's people. " He must, in a word, be able to say
with St. Paul : "Be ye followers of me, as I also am of
Christ." "Be ye followers of me, brethren, and observe
them who walk so as you have our model." It is plain,
then, that any one who sets himself up to be a moral
leader should first begin by reforming himself, for it
is only then men become impressed, subdued and
reclaimed. The irresistible persuasiveness of an
upright and holy life, backed by the intrinsic truth
of the real reformer's preaching, alone carries con-
viction and brings about a loving compliance with
Divine injunctions — the sure and sole foundation of all
reformation worthy of the name.

When we turn now to Luther and ask him why he
claimed to be a religious reformer and why he posed
as one entrusted by Heaven with a great and holy
mission, we are not only astonished, but dumbfounded
to discover that his title was self-assumed and without
warrant, and, that, moreover, his qualifications for
the work of reform were of such a nature as to impress
the wise with the conviction that he received no call
from Heaven to inaugurate and carry out a moral
rejuvenation in either Church or State. Unlike the
saintly preachers of God's truth of all times, he was
in no way ever under a sense of his own personal need
of improvement and was in consequence utterly incapa-
ble and unfitted to elevate unto righteousness any
among the brethren. As an inspired instrument of
God to work out with success a genuine religious re-
form, he stands out as the supreme contradiction in
the histor}^ of all we know concerning Heaven's deal-
ings with fallen nature in relation to its uplift and
improvement.

Everv one who is in the least familiar with the

314 The Facts About Luther

literature of the so-called Reformation and especially
with that part of it which touches on the life of the
pretended reformer, must appreciate his utter lack
of constructive genius, his depraved manners and
utterances and his perversity of principle coupled with
falsity of teaching. He has nowhere and at no time
given his hearers a complete, methodical and reasoned
synthesis of God-given doctrine. He is inconsistent,
illogical : he is not afraid to contradict to-day the state-
ments of yesterday. It is, then, absurd beyond the
power of expression to imagine that any one so noted
as Luther for the ungovernable transports, riotous
proceedings, angry conflicts and intemperate contro-
versies that made up the greater part of his life, could
be an instrument of God to bring about and to effect
a moral and religious reform. To discover the notes
of a messenger of God in one who had so little regard
for merely ordinary' proprieties and whose language
was usually so coarse and disgusting that to quote it
one would need to saturate the atmosphere with anti-
septics and avoid coming into collision with the civil
authorities, presupposes a partiality amounting to
blindness. That he was a deformer and not a reformer
is the honest verdict of all who are not blind partisans
and who know the man at close vision for what he
was and for what he stood sponsor.

It has long since been said by Cicero that "most
men are determined in their views by their mental
and spiritual condition." This was undoubtedly the
case with Luther and what that condition was on moral
questions, on matrimony, on the dignity of man and
on kindred matters, we learn from himself. His own
utterances, his doubts, his terrors and those compunc-
tious visitings of a disturbed conscience, which seem
at one time at least to have made his life a torture,
prove conclusively that he was not a God-inspired man
and had no claim to be considered even an ordinary
reformer or spiritual guide.

In studying Luther, we must remember, that his
cardinal dogma when he abandoned Catholic teaching,

Luther as a Religious Reformer 315

was that man has no free-will, that he can do no good
and that to subdue animal passion is neither necessary
nor possible. He insisted that the moral law of the
Decalogue is not binding, that the Ten Commandments
are abrogated and that they are no longer in force
among Christians. "V/e must," he says, ''remove the
Decalogue out of sight and heart." (De Wette, 4, 188.)
''If we allow them — the Commandments — any inliuence
in our conscience, they become the cloak of all evil,
heresies and blasphemies." (Comm. ad Galat. p. 310.)
"If Moses should attempt to intimidate you with his
stupid Ten Commandments, tell him right out : chase
yourself to the Jews." (Wittenb. ad. 5, 1573.) Having
thus unceremoniously brushed aside the binding force
of the moral law, we do not wonder that he makes the
following startling and shameless pronouncements.
*'As httle as one is able," he says, "to remove moun-
tains, to fly with the birds (Mist und Harn halten),
to create new stars, or to bite off one's nose, so little
can one escape unchastity." (Alts Abend Mahletre, 2,
118.) Out of the depths of his depraved mind, he
further declares : "They are fools who attempt to
overcome temptations (temptations to lewdness) by
fasting, prayer and chastisement. For such tempta-
tions and immoral attacks are easily overcome when
there are plenty of maidens and women." (Jen. ed.
2, p. 216.)

The filthiness embodied in this pronouncement is
shocking. When we note the unbecoming language in
which he couches his degrading teaching, how, we must
ask ourselves, can its author be called "a messenger and
a man of God?" Would his warmest advocates dare
in this day and generation to repeat his words either
in private or in public ? Would any Lutheran minister
of the period be so lost to shame and common decency
as to quote these in the presence of his family or sound
them from his pulpit? Would any man using such
language in our day be a welcome guest at the table
of any of the ministers belonging to the seventeen
different brands of Lutheranism? Could any man

316 The Facts About Luther

uttering such filthy speech possibly enter into matri-
mony imbued with those high ideals which are the glory
of Christianity, so as to enable him to become a model
husband or father, and to inspire his neighbors to
practise domestic virtue? Why, then, call Luther a
reformer, one who would not in our times be regarded
fit to be entrusted with police duty in the worst slums
of our cities, much less to be made the presiding officer
of a Vice Purity Committee? Like Bullinger, the
Swiss reformer, we stand aghast at what he calls
Luther's ''muddy and swinish, vulgar and coarse
teachings.'* The indelicate and grossly filthy expres-
sion of this man's views on Christian morality reminds
us of the apt saying of St. Jude: "By thy words thou
shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shall be
condemned."

It is not an agreeable task to attack a man's moral
character, but Luther's mouth is to blame for the
exposition of the corruption that seemed to be down
deep in his heart. This so-called physician of souls,
while he cannot "heal himself," must yet needs mani-
fest himself, as "raging waves of the sea," foaming
out "his own shame" ; because his tongue and his
devices were "against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of
His Majesty." It is well perhaps he should proclaim
his sin "as Sodom, and not hide it," for the interests
of humanity and to save "men of good will" from his
poison. The serpent's rattle made itself distinctly
heard in his unholy utterances and though he presumed
to be the "doctor of doctors" and declared all besides
"asses and rascals," his expression of the moral views
he entertained shows beyond peradventure that he was
not a man in any way fit to lead others unto reforma-
tion and sanctity of life.

After Luther's break with Rome and when his piety
grew cold, he gained a bad name for himself owing
to his loose teachings on morality and his general
lightness of behavior. To say the least, his pronounce-
ments on delicate questions were rather lax, and, as
might be expected, his conduct and example could not

Luther as a Religious Reformer 31V

but have been in keeping with them. It is well known
that he was pretty generally and often openly accused
by his enemies, both Catholic and Protestant, of
extremely grave moral delinquencies. No doubt
there was considerable exaggeration in the accusations
brought against him, but it nevertheless remains true
that many of his faults and failings against morality
cannot be denied or gainsaid. As a matter of fact
he was openly blamed for his well known and impru-
dent intimacy with Katherine Von Bora before his
marriage and Melanchthon severely censured him for
his lack of personal dignity, his loose behavior and
coarse jests in the company of his intimates and even
in the presence of the nuns he helped in violation of
Germanic law to escape from their convents.

Hieronimus Dungersheim, an eminent theologian of
Leipzig, indignant at his conduct, which little became
one who thought he was called to reform the Church
and the age, puts this question in his "Thirty Articles"
to Luther; "What are your thoughts when you are
seated in the midst of the herd of apostate nuns whom
you have seduced and, as they themselves admit, make
whatever jokes occur to you? You not only do not at-
tempt to avoid what you declare is so hateful to you
(the exciting of sensuality), but you intentionally stir
your own and others' passions. What are your thoughts
when you recall your own golden words either when
sitting in such company, or after you have committed
your wickedness ? What can you reply, when reminded
of your former conscientiousness, in view of such a
scandalous life of deceit? I have, heard what I will
not now repeat from those who bad converse with
you and I could supply details and names. Out upon
your morality and religion ; out upon your obstinacy
and bhndness ! How have you sunk from the pinnacle
of perfection and true wisdom to the depths of
depravity and abominable error, dragging down count-
less numbers with you ! Where now is Tauler, where
the Theologia Deutsch' from which you boasted you
had received so much light ? The 'Theologia' condemns

318 The Facts About Luther

as utterly wicked, nay, devilish through and through,
all that you are now doing, teaching and proclaiming
in your books. Glance at it again and compare. Alas,
you 'theologian of the Cross !' What you now have to
show is nothing but the filthiest wisdom of the flesh,
that wisdom which, according to the Apostle Paul
(Rom. viii, 6), is the death of the soul and the enemy
of God."

The Leipzig University professor then goes on to
refer to the warning which Luther himself had given
against manners of talking and acting which tempt
to impurity and continues as follows : "And now you
set aside every feeling of shame, you speak and write
of questionable subjects in such a disgraceful fashion
that decent men, whether married or unmarried, cover
their faces and fling away your writings with execra-
tion. In order to cast dishonor upon the brides of
Christ you (in your writings), so to speak, lead
unchaste men to their couches, using words which for
very shame I cannot repeat."

To the testimony of this distinguished writer regard-
ing Luther's unseemly behavior we might add that of
many other reliable authors, but the foregoing is repre-
sentative of all who lost respect for the man and who
strongly protested against his flagrant violations of
decency in speaking and treating of sexual questions.

That he was consumed by the fires of fleshly lust he
admits himself. Even when engaged, as we related
in another place, in the translation of the Bible, Luther,
in the year 1521, while living in the Wartburg, to which
place this ''courageous Apostle" fled in the disguise
of a country squire and lived under an assumed
name, wrote to his friend Melanchthon to say: "I sit
here in idleness and pray, alas, little, and sigh not for
the Church of God. Much more am I consumed by the
fires of my unbridled flesh. In a word, I, who should
burn of the spirit, am consumed by the flesh and by
lasciviousness." (De Wette, 2, 22.)

In the "Table Talk" he is recorded as saying: "I
burn with a thousand flames in my unsubdued flesh:

Luther as a Religious Reformer 319

I feel myself carried on with a rage towards women
that approaches madness. I, who ought to be fervent
in spirit, am only fervent in impurity."

Luther further tells that ''while a Catholic, he passed
his life in austerities, in watchings, in fasts and praying,
in poverty, chastity and obedience." When once
reformed, that is to say, another man, he says that:
''As it does not depend upon him not to be a man, so
neither does it depend upon him to be without a
woman; and that he can no longer forego the indul-
gence of the vilest natural propensities." (Serm. de
Matrim. fol. 119.)

**He was so well aware of his immorality," as we are
informed by his favorite disciple, "that he wished they
would remove him from the office of preaching."
(Sleidan, Book II, 1520.)

But the remedies for all this. Did he struggle and
make issue with temptations ? Did he rebuke the devil
and his onslaughts, or did he, hke one deprived of the
power of resistance, allow himself to become an easy
prey to the wiles and the machinations of the tempter?
Alas, he tells us that instead of being prepared for
the attacks of the enemy of his soul, he prayed little
in the hour when he was "consumed by the fires of his
unbridled flesh." How, then, could he expect to come
off victorious in the unequal and terrible struggle ?

Lutherans often relate how when their hero was at-
tacked by the devil he hurled an inkstand at the arch
enemy. This w^as an ingenious method of defense,
but something more effectual was urgently required in
the unpleasant circumstances. The ordinary useful
and consecrated means for repelling Satan's onslaughts,
such as prayer, penance and the use of the sacraments,
were not, however, agreeable to Luther's tastes. Fancy-
ing hfmself to be a wonderful physician of souls, he,
in his resourcefulness, conceived new means and new
methods which he thought would surely be helpful in
the uncomfortable and dangerous meetings with his
Satanic Majesty. What, think you, are they? Does
he prescribe prayer, fasting, and the crucifixion of the

320 The Facts About Luther

flesh for the mastering of passion and the overthrow
of the enemy of salvation as the Master ever enjoined?
No. His ways are not the ways of the Lord. "They
are fools/' he says, "who attempt to overcome tempta-
tions by fasting, prayer, and chastisement. For such
temptations and immoral attacks are easily overcome
when there are plenty of maidens and women."

How now can any one believe the exponent of such
teaching to be an inspired man of God? Is it not
horrible to think that any one in his senses could give
utterance to such unbecoming language and prescribe
such indecent methods for the overthrow of unruly
passion? Did the corruption of his mind, as is plainly
evidenced in his speech, induce to laxity of behavior
and lead him to exemplify his teaching in grave moral
delinquencies ? Corrupt teaching begets corrupt action,
and hence it is difficult to believe that any one holding
such principles and "consumed by the fires of his un-
bridled flesh" could wholly escape in his own case the
exemplification of his unhallowed pronouncements. But
whether or not he used his own avowed remedies in
temptations to lewdness, of one thing we are certain,
namely, that his conduct after he left the Church was
often open to just criticism. By his own admission
he made no scruple of drinking deeply in order to
drive away temptations and melancholy, and whilst
his enemies may have gone too far in charging him
with gross immorality, there is, however, much in this
direction which cannot be ignored or excused. His
ghastly utterances, his bubbling over with obscenity,
his boiling spring of sensuality were known to all, and
it could not be wondered at if men thought that these
defects could only be explained and partially defended
on the ground of an abnormal sexual condition which
was supposed to have been heightened by licentious
irregularities.

In the "Analecta Lutherana" by Theodore Kolde,
there is a medical letter of Wolfgang Rychardus to
Johann Magenbuch, Luther's physician, dated June
II, 1523, taken from the Hamburg Town Library,

Luther as a Religious Reformer 3S1

which is of a character to make one wonder on reading
it whether Luther did not at one period suffer from
syphiHs, at any rate in a mild form. On this deHcate
matter any one may, if further information be desired,
read Grisar, Vol. II, pp. 162, 3, 4, where all the details
of the question are carefully and learnedly discussed.

With Luther's nasty writings and sayings at hand,
coupled with the accusations of his friends and inti-
mates regarding the looseness of his behavior, it is
sheer recklessness and consummate audacity to hold
him up to public gaze as a teacher and model of
morality. His admirers may canonize him as the fore-
runner of revolution, as the apostle of socialism, as
the liberator of human thought, but the insult is too
great, and the deception too easily discovered, when
once the ''Reformer" is spoken of in connection with
morality.

Many a time and oft when Luther was in the monas-
tery he heard the inspired words, *'Make your bodies
a temple of the Holy Ghost." That is the great aim
of the Christian religion. Christianity met paganism
full of corruption and of impurity ; it came to conquer
immorality by spirituality. It alone inculcated the idea
that the greatness of man must consist in becoming
master of his passions, and of his animal nature. It
ever insisted that even the flesh must be sanctified.
This idea took hold of the minds of men and was so
deeply rooted that on all sides the Orders of those
who by vows practised chastity and perpetual virginity
began to multiply. This thought of chastity, both in
the single and married life, the Church impressed upon
all of her children in all generations. Around the
nuptial chamber, she placed the sacrament of matri-
mony as a sentinel and, upon the bosom, of the virgin,
she placed the laurel of her loving approval and
motherly benediction. Woman was elevated and became
the true companion of her husband, the educator of
her children ; and the maiden, the virgin, became the
cherished object of knightly courage and protection.
Chastitv' was the motto written across the Christian

322 The Facts About Luther

horizon and engraved on the shield of the chevaher.

To change all this, to deify indecency, decry celibacy
and virginity and dishonor the married state, was
Luther's Satanic desire and diabolical purpose. The
evil effects of his destructive work have cursed the
world during the past four hundred years and, even
in our own day, we find it has penetrated our homes
to work havoc there through the divorce mill* and to
tell men they are powerless in the midst of the allure-
ments of life to resist animal proclivities. For many
to-day, chastity in the single and married state is
purely a matter of law, a matter of social etiquette,
an external thing, something which is decried as an
impossibility and as an encroachment upon natural
demands.

Luther, horrible to relate, with the gospel in his
hand, taught his disciples, male and female, in the
world and in the cloisters, that no man or woman
could be chaste in primitive, much less in fallen nature.
"Chastity or continence," said this vile man, "was
physically impossible.'' In the most brutal frankness,
he writes without a blush the following lines to a
number of religious women : 'Though," he says, *'the
women folk are ashamed to confess it, yet it is proved
by Scripture and experience, that there is not one
among many thousands, to whom God gives grace to
keep entirely chaste. A woman has no power over
herself. God created her body for man and to bear
offspring. This clearly appears from the testimony of
Moses i, 28, and from the design of God in the con-

*A few facts will show to what an extent the loathsome leprosy of
divorce has spread in our country alone. The total number of divorces
granted in 1867 was 21 per 100,000 of the population. Forty years
later, in 1906, there were 86 per 100,000; thus, allowing for the increased
ronulation, divorce had increased 319%. In 1887 there was one divorce
for every seventeen marriages; in 1906 one for every twelve marriages,
and at the same rate we will have in 1946 the appalling numt)er of one
divorce for every five marriages.

Durin? 1901 there were twice as many divorces granted among
75,000.000 Americans in the United States as among the 400,000,000
souls of Europe and other Chri-tian Coniiviritie-. During the twenty years
ended with 1906. Ireland had only nineteen divorces, or an average of
less than one absolute divorce per year for her entire population of
4,500,000.

No loyal American and true Christian can view the divorce evil in
our country with other than feelings of the gravest alarm.

Luther as a Religious Reformer 323

struction of her creation." "The gratification of sexual
desire was nature's work, God's work," as he cynically
calls it, *'and, as necessary, aye, much more so than
eating, drinking, digesting, sweating, sleeping," etc.
(De Wette II, 535.) We dare not repeat all he
enumerates in his filthy catalogue. "Hence," said he,
*'to vow or promise to restrain this natural propensity,
is the same as to vow or promise that one will have
wings and fly and be an angel and morally worth about
as much as if one was to promise God that he would
commit adultery."

The way in which this "glorious evangehst" explains
his beastly theories in his coarse Latin and in his still
coarser German, is such that it cannot be given here,
"so full is it," to adopt Hallam's mild language, "not
only of indelicacy but of gross filthiness." No defense
can be set up for the indecencies of his expression
which no Christian ear could listen to. He had the
advantage of a monastic training which should have
had a refining influence over his whole life and, no
matter what hatred he bore the Church and her teach-
ings, he should not have forgotten that his speech
should be that of a gentleman and not that of a denizen
of the underworld. The pity is that cudgel or other
weapon was not lifted in threat against the theological
pretender who taught, in virtue of his new gospel, that
all women, Catholic or Protestant, outside those that
contracted marriage, are necessarily unclean and
impure. If Protestants hearing Luther's language can
keep cool and restrain their indignation, it only shows
how far religious bigotry can control all natural
impulses of decency and honor.

From the beginning of the world, men were taught
to place a high value on personal purity and were
directed to present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
pleasing unto the Lord. This lesson was thoroughly
impressed upon society ; and the holy of all times, even
the virtuous sages of paganism and the professional
votaries of false gods, believed that continence was
not only possible, but acceptable to the Deity. The

324 The Facts About Luther

Incarnation of God and of a God conceived and born
of a spotless Virgin, elevated the holy teaching to a
still higher degree and the sacred lives of Jesus and
Mary, becoming the ideals of Christian behavior,
caused religion to open up peaceful retreats the world
over for generous souls, free agents, followers of
evangelical counsels, to give strongest expression
thereto for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, and
of love of virginal continence. Enchanted by the
example of the Saviour, men and women wished and
strove to be as He was and, as a direct consequence,
Christian celibacy and virginity blessed the world to
teach it to rise triumphant over the passions of the
human heart. When one is convinced that there is
nothing here below really worthy of lasting regard,
who has a right to prevent him from vowing to make
God the eternal object of his love and affection?

Luther knew full well the especial esteem the Church
always entertained for celibacy, for virgin souls and
for the state of consecrated continence. Sympathizing
with this spirit of Holy Mother Church, he himself
went forth from kindred and father's house, from the
surroundings and sweet ties of family affection, from
the innocent inducements that open out before a young
heart, to consecrate his life in holy chastity and to
dedicate it to the service of Him who is alone without
blemish. Then he did not express himself openly and
declare chastity was impossible and a mere delusion,
that licentiousness was permissible and natural, and
that the gratification of the flesh was the aim of man.
Far from it. On many occasions before his break with
the Church, we find him, as some of his Protestant
supporters will be surprised to learn, extolling the
religious calling and declaring it "as more pleasing in
the sight of God than the marriage state . . . better
on earth as having less care and trouble not in itself,
but because a man can give himself to preaching and
the Word of God . . . whosoever wishes to serve the
Churches . . . would do well to remain without a
wife." In this Luther was right. He was in accord

Luther as a Religious Reformer 325

with a conviction common to men of all times, of all
places and of all religions, that there is a manifest
incompatibility of the priestly office with sexual rela-
tions with women even in the bonds of marriage. He
understood the Church's wisdom in not allowing her
priests to marry, as is apparent from the fact that a
wedded clergy must necessarily be separated from the
queen of virtues and the mother of great self-devotion,
charity, profound study and all that wins favor from
God and man. Hampered by the ties of family and the
cares of wife and children, how could the ambassadors
of Christ ever fulfill the sublime commission entrusted
to them by the great Eternal Priest who said : *'Go,
teach all nations under the sun ?" How could they as
St. Paul says, "think of the things of God," be free
to devote themselves entirely to Plis service and afford
example to the people unless they led celibate lives?

In spite, however, of all earlier pronouncements on
voluntary chastity for Christ's sake, "Luther at
bottom," as Father Johnston remarks, "hated the very
idea of virginity. The reason that he extols it at times
was because he could not explain Paul's plain praise
of the same in first Corinthians. Fundamentally he
was driven to depreciate it most of the time and to
conceive a positive diabolical hatred of celibacy, in
particular: driven to disparage virginity by his strange
pessimistic theory of the hopeless depravity of man and
lack of freedom of the will; driven to hate celibacy
because of its connection with his own one time and
hated priesthood and possibly because of the gibes of
his Catholic opponents at his haste to wed."

Luther in his heart of hearts had a low conception
of male and female virtue and did not believe chastity
outside of wedlock possible, except in such rare cases
as amount to a miracle of Divine interposition. "Chas-
tity," he says, "is as little within our power as the
working of miracles. He who resolves to remain single
should give up his title to be a human being and prove
that he is either an angel or a spirit." "As little as we
can do without eating and drinking, so it is impossible

326 The Facts About Luther

to do without women." "The reason is that we have
been conceived and nourished in a woman's womb, that
from woman we were born and begotten ; hence our
flesh is for the most part woman's flesh and it is
impossible to abstain from it." (Tischr. 2, s. 20 S.

We omit out of decency to quote more of Luther's
vile utterances on this delicate subject. The thoughts
that filled his depraved mind and reflected on the
greater part of mankind led him on after his excom-
munication to strive vvith diabolical energy to eradicate
from the people's hearts the love for and beHef in the
possibility of chastity outside of wedlock. He now
sets himself up very distinctly against the supernatural
counsel, which the Master proposed to those who
"will to be perfect" and who with largeness of heart,
are "able to contain it." He knew that Christ sur-
rounded himself with virgins. He knew that His
forerunner, St. John the Baptist, was a virgin; His
foster father St. Joseph was a virgin; His mother
Mary was a virgin; all of His Apostles, except St.
Peter, were virgins, who had "left all things to follow
Him, and it is a tradition of the Church that St. Peter
too observed continency from the time that he obeyed
the call of the Lord to be "a fisher of men." He knew
that St. Paul, too, was a virgin. He knew that from
the apostolic times onward the conviction grew in the
Church that men who exercised Christ's oflice and
priesthood at the altar and handled His Sacred Body
thereon were called on to practise the highest form
of chastity and to consecrate their virginity to God of
their own accord, confident in Divine help for the ful-
fillment of the requirements of their holy and exacting
calling. Luther knew all this and yet, in the perversity
of his will and in spite of his better judgment, he
deliberately closed his eyes to the facts, hardened his
heart and resisted the counsels of the Lord.

Christ, speaking of virginity, not by way of command,
but by way of counsel, said, "he that can take it let
him take it" and that His grace will be all-sufficient to

Luther as a Religious Reformer 327

overcome the infirmity of nature. Luther in unbounded
blasphemy contradicts this Divine utterance. He will
no longer acknowledge such preaching. He, the doctor
of doctors, considers it all folly and declares most
emphatically that ''it is impossible for any one to live
single and be continent." To his distorted mind, the
vow of chastity was an "impossible vow," "an abomina-
tion" and "worse than adultery." In his desire to
abolish and get rid of it, he is not ashamed to appeal
"to priests, monks and nuns, who find themselves
capable of generation," to violate their sworn promises
and abandon their freely chosen state of celibacy.
Unless they follow his advice, he considers nothing
remains for them but "to pass their days in inevitable
self-gratification.'' "Parents," he said, "should be
dissuaded from counselling their children to adopt
the religious state as they were surely making an oflfer-
ing of them to the devil." Thus with shameless
effrontery, he declaimed like a maniac against religious
vows and, so bitterly antagonistic was he, that he went
so far as to declare "that the day has come not only
to abolish forever those unnatural vows, but to punish,
with all the rigor of the law, such as make them; to
destroy convents, abbeys, priories and monasteries and
in this way prevent their ever being uttered." (See
Wittenb. 2, 304 B.) To all this, every libertine from
Luther's day down to the present, would respond with
a hearty "Amen." Not so, however, the clean of heart,
who appreciate the invaluable services that the Relig-
ious, male and female, have rendered the world in all
ages and climes in every department of life.

The great exemplar of virginity was the Lord Jesus
Christ. The dissolute nailed Him to the cross. Ever
since persecution has been the lot of the clean of heart.
Luther and his followers had not the courage to con-
tinue to make sacrifices, conquer their passions and
bring their unruly bodies into subjection to Divine
law and heavenly grace and, imagining others to be as
weak, depraved and cowardly as themselves — no
longer men enough to bear their self-imposed yoke of

338 The Facts About Luther

chastity — they even charged with a horrible hypocrisy
the imitators of the virginity of Christ, whose glorious
history is in veneration among the pure of heart the
world over. In refusing to believe in the possibility of
virtue and self-control and in persecuting the aspirants
after perfection, they only prove to the disgust of the
decent of all times that they have reached the lowest
limits of brutality.

Luther, however, had a remedy for all the abomina-
tions he conjured up in his filthy mind against celibacy
and virginity. In a most disgusting sermon, which
he should have been ashamed to preach at Witten-
berg in 1522, he advanced in the crudest and most
shocking manner his conviction that matrimony is
obligatory on every individual. "Chastity," he says,
"is an abomination." ''ReHgious vows are impossible
to keep" and **he who desires to remain single under-
takes an impossible struggle." The gracious ways of
Providence and the free choice of individuals to
determine their state of life are as nothing to the
Founder of Lutheranism, who nov/ decrees matrimony
for all as the only remedy against the violence of
corrupt and unruly passion. The words of God,
"increase and multiply," found in Genesis i, 28, he
thought, "are not simply a precept but much more than
a precept; they enjoin a Divine work which is just as
necessary as eating, drinking, digesting, sweating,
sleeping, etc." After alluding to the words of Christ
recorded in Matthew xix, 12, "and there are eunuchs
who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom
of heaven," he says : "He that does not find himself
in any of the classes referred to ought to think of
matrimony forthwith ... If not, you cannot possibly
remain chaste . . . you cannot withdraw yourself
from that word of God, 'increase and multiply,' if you
will not necessarily and continually commit the most
horrible crimes." (Wittenb. Vol. V. 119 B.) In a
letter written to Reissenbusch he repeats his claim,
"that chastity is as little within the power of man as
are other miracles and favors of God." Then he asks

Luther as a Religious Reformer 329

his friend, "Why do you hesitate and trouble yourself
so much with serious reflections ? It must and shall
and will be ever thus and things will not be different.
Put such thoughts out of your mind and behave
courageously by entering into wedlock. Your body
demands and requires it; God wills it and urges you
to it. How will you get over this ? . . . Every day we
see how difficult it is to observe conjugal chastity in
matrimony and should we, outside of that state, resolve
on chastity, as if we were not human beings and pos-
sessed neither flesh nor blood?" (De Wette II, 637
seqq.)

The motives which Luther urged to induce all to
enter wealock were evidently far from being in accord
with those which the Almighty intended in the conse-
cration of the union of both sexes. But as he held
matrimony to be a worldly thing, denied its sacramental
character and refused to acknowledge it to be a type of
that great sacrament, which is between Christ and His
Church, we need not be astonished that he urges an
additional motive to those already advanced for main-
taining the obligation of marriage. Here it is, genuinely
stamped with the usual Lutheran brand and bearing
the marks of the Reformer's abiding hatred against the
Pope. To the single, he now cries out : "Though one
may have the gift to live chastely without a wife, yet
one ought to marry to spite the Pope who insists on
celibacy and forbids the clergy to marry." (Tischr. II,
c. 20 S. 3.) Marry and spite the Pope. Do not mind
whether you are called or not called to the married
state. Rush into it. Do not weigh the consequences.
The Pope insists on safe-guarding one of the evan-
gelical counsels and he must not be suflfered to do so
longer. The way to weaken his influence and destroy
his holy work is for all to marry. The motive was
truly ingenious and in every way worthy of the
inventive powers of the reformer. Needless to say,
the strange advice was not generally heeded, for then
and now most men have other and higher reasons than
spiting the Pope for their entrance into married Ufe.

330 The Facts About LuT:ii:ii

Luther, notwithstanding the evident folly and
weakness of his advice, still kept harping on the Pope.
In spitefulness and in hatred of celibacy, he is now
carried beyond himself and urges the violation of the
laws of the Church which are framed for the safe-
guarding of marriage in the general councils of
Christendom. "To understand his course the better,"
Fr. Johnston reminds us, "we should know that there
were many secretly in favor of his new doctrines, but
bound to clerical celibacy, such as priests, nuns, and
the Knights of the Teutonic Order. That these should
have followed Luther's example and repudiated their
vows and married openly, was comprehensible and
from their standpoint not at all surprising. But that
is not what many of them did. Instead they were
keeping concubines or at least were secretly marrying
in a way that legally amounted to the same." Now
what is the advice that Luther gave such offenders?
He tells them to contract such secret marriages and
counselled certain parish priests living under the juris-
diction of Duke George or the bishops to "marry their
cook secretly." In a letter addressed to the Lords of
the Teutonic Order dated March 28, 1523, Luther
writes as follows: "Again I say that if it should
happen that one, two, a hundred or a thousand and
more Councils should decree that a priest should v/ed
or do anything else that the Word of God commands
or forbids, then I would expect God's mercy and much
more for him who kept one or two or three females
all his life than for him who weds a wife in accordance
with such a decree. Yea, I would command in the
name of God and advise that no one should wed
according to such a decree upon the penalty of the
loss of his soul, but that he should live in celibacy and,
if this is not possible, that he may rely on God's
mercy and not despair in his weakness and sinfulness."
(Wittenb. 6, 244). A little further on he repeats that
"one who keeps a female commits less sin and is nearer
to God's grace than a man who would take a wife by
permission of a Council."

Luther as a Religious Reformer 331

As we read the disgusting words addressed to the
nobility of the Teutonic Order approving and coun-
selling concubinage and secret immorality, we are
amazed beyond the power of expression and the blush
of shame rises to our cheeks. The fact that Luther
counselled such secret illicit unions in defiance of
ecclesiastical and civil law and considered them holier
than those that honorably and openly complied with
the regulations of the General Councils of Christendom,
makes his advice and recommendation all the more
abhorrent and detestable. His apologists may try to
explain away his advocacy of concubinage, but his
filthy words remain to confront them at every turn
and to tell the world that in base wantonness and
horrible blasphemy they have never been equalled or
surpassed by the most depraved of mortals. It is
only preachers and writers like himself, men lost to
all appreciation of marital propriety, who attempt to
excuse the brazen manifestation of their master's cor-
ruption of moral sense and dare call this advocate
of concubinage and illicit matrimonial unions "a
reformer" and a "servant of the Lord." Men of sense,
men who take Luther's words as they read and consider
the filth, obscenity, moral corruption and infidelity that
constantly fill his pronouncements on the holy state
of single and married life, are not deceived. The
evidences of his depravity are so overwhelming and
convincing that they are forced to the conclusion that
this shameless advocate of brazen prostitution could
not be and was not "a messenger of the all Holy God."
To the clean of heart the idea is preposterous. As
one thinks of this man's eflforts to degrade human
nature, it makes him feel almost ashamed to belong
to the same human family.

It is an awkward thing for a man without credentials
to charge himself with the public conscience and to
assume the position of an evangelist without discharg-
ing the high obligations inseparably attached thereto.
Luther was very proud of the pretended light which
he thought he was spreading through his novel and

332 The Facts About Luther

immoral teachings. He delighted to tell his admirers
how through his efforts religion had been made acces-
sible to all. Before his time, he said : ''Nobody knew
Christ . . . nobody knew anything that a Christian
ought to be familiar with. The Pope-asses obscured
and suppressed all knowledge of heavenly things.**
They were nothing short of "asses, big, rude, ignorant
asses" and especially in all matters pertaining to Chris-
tianity. "But now," he continues, "thanks to God,
men and women know the catechism, they know how
to live, to believe, to pray, to suffer and to die."
(Walch XVI. 2013.)

This was a proud boast of Luther and well might
he feel elated did the wonderful change he conjured
up in his vivid imagination actually come about. Of
enlightenment, as conceived by him, there was a plenty.
It was not, however, the enlightenment which the
"Pope-asses," as he calls the Vicars of Christ's Church,
had furnished the world for its uplift and sanctifica-
tion. They, in their long rule of the Church of God,
were never so unmindful of their sacred mission and
the high obligations attached thereto, as to proclaim
that the Decalogue had no longer any binding force,
that vows made to God might be disregarded, and
that fornication, divorce and concubinage were permis-
sible to every blackguard who violated the sacred
relations of the married state. If an opprobrious name
were in order and, if it were permissible to confer
such on one who earned it as well as Luther did,
then it is not the Pope, but himself he should have
called an "ass," for it was his braying that announced
to men and women the new enlightenment in the in-
decencies and gratifications of animal passions that
degraded humanity, offended Christian sensibilities
and ruined souls for time and eternity.

But, it is time to get acquainted with a little more
of the special kind of "enlig'^tenment" Luther fur-
nished the world and of which it was ignorant until
"his blessed gospel" announced it for the delectation
of the lawless and the dissolute in society. In the

Luther as a Religious Reformer 833

''Babylonian Captivity," wl.ich was issued in 1521, he
denied the sacramental character of matrimony, and
thereafter, especially in a filthy sermon, delivered
at Wittenberg in 1522, for which he should have been
stoned out of the pulpit, he gave utterance to senti-
ments which did not contribute to raise wedded life
in public esteem. His aim seemed to be to destroy
the sanctity of marriage and thereby work the destruc-
tion of the social order organized by GoJ, whose
corner-stone is the family. Religion, civil order,
manhood and womanhood are there matured and
fostered and protected and started upon the way of
duty and civilization. If the wells are poisoned, disease
will spread everywhere ; if the home is defiled the
whole of Hfe is profaned and corrupted ; if the sacred
bonds of the home and the ties of the family are
weakened, the demons are unchained and let loose upon
humanity. It is for this reason that the Catholic Church
with diligence and perseverance watched over the
holy state of m.atrimony, which Christ elevated to
the dignity of a sacrament, making it a union never
to be dissolved. "For better for worse till death do
us part," was the motto of Christendom. But Luther
steps forward, with "his evangel" in hand, and both
in theory and practice condemns the Divine command-
ment : "Let every man have his own wife and let every
woman have her own husband." He proclaims instead
the permissibility of bigamy and of the system of
polygamy on the installment plan through divorce, a
system which naturally opened the flood-gates of
sensuality and threatened the very existence of society.
According to his new teaching any man who is tired
of his wife can leave her for any reason whatsoever
and, forthwith, the marriage is dissolved and both
free to marr}^ again. "The husband may drive away
his wife; God cares not. Let Vashti go and take an
Esther, as did the king Ahasuerus." Does not such
a permission open the gates to successive polygamy,
free love and legalized prostitution?

Luther had a close friend by the name of Carlstadt,

334 The Facts About Luther

who left the Church of his fathers and became a
disciple of the new gospel of freedom. Just to show
practically how he had absorbed the new teaching of
license inculcated by the prophet of Wittenberg, he
broke his priestly vows and became the husband of
two wives. Bruck, the Chancellor of the Duke of
Saxe-Weimar, in 1524, consulted Luther on the
scandalous incident. The Reformer, not in the least
abashed, openly and distinctly stated : *T confess that
I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for
it does not contradict the Scripture. If a man wishes
to marry more than one wife he should be asked
Vv^hether he is satisfied in his conscience that he may
do so in accordance v/ith the word of God. In such
a case the civil authority has nothing to do in the
matter." (De Wette, second edition, 459.) Many
other clear statements wherein Luther sanctions polyg-
amy might be reproduced here, but the one given
above v/ill suffice for the present.

It is certain that Luther not only advocated the
vile teaching of polygamy, but, that he also sanctioned
it in specific cases, notably that of the Landgrave
Philip of Hesse. This potentate was one of the m.ost
licentious men of his day and in consequence of his
excesses suflfered from a violent secret malady. In
a petition addressed to Luther, supplicating permission
to take an additional wife, he stated that "he Hved
continually in adultery" and that "he neither could
nor would abstain from impurity." This unfaithful
man knew of Luther's free views on matrimony and
he appealed to him to obtain his heart's desire, not
only, as he said, "to escape from the snares of the
devil," but "to ease his conscience in case he died on
the battlefield in the cause of the Lutheran gospel."
Luther was sorely perplexed. He dared not repudiate
the principle of polygamy he had adopted from the
very commencement of his reformation and yet he
feared to sanction the promulgation of a general law
allowing polygamy to all on account of the scandal
and difficulties it would occasion. The Reformer had

Luther as a Religious Reformer 335

hoped, as he said, that Philip of Hesse would "take
an ordinary, honest girl and keep her secretly in a
house and live with her in secret marital relations."
(Lauterbach's Diary, Seidman, 196.) "The secret
marital relations," he maintained, "of princes and great
gentry is a valid marriage before God and is not unlike
the concubinage and matrimony of. the Patriarchs."
(Tischreden Von Concubinal der Furster.) The inter-
esting penitent, apparently so tender of soul, was not,
however, to be thwarted in his shameful designs. He
knew that bigamy was a crime, punishable with death
according to German law^ and in order to avoid most
serious consequences, which in less turbulent times
would eventuate to his discomfort, he felt it was to
his interest to have some approbation of authority for
his shameful petition for a double marriage and thus
offer a sedative to his conscience in the thought that
he lived in lawful wedlock. The dissolute prince
urged his indecent proposition, until finally Luther
and all of his Wittenberg theologians shamefully
acceded to his request and granted him permission to
take a second wife during the life time of the first
with the sole condition that she should not be publicly
recognized. The document, which expresses the grant
of dispensation, accompanied with a representation of
the difficulties of the case and under condition of its
being kept secret, was written by Melanchthon and
covers about five pages of De Wette, a Professor of
Protestant Divinity at Basle. This document, signed
by Luther and seven of his associate theologians,
amongst other things, says : 'Tf your Highness has
altogether made up your mind to marry another wife,
we declare under an oath that it ought to be done
secretly. . . .No conditions or scandals of any impor-
tance will be the consequence of this (of keeping the
marriage secret), for it is nothing unusual for princes
to have concubines ; and although the reason could
not be understood by ordinary people, nevertheless,
more prudent persons would understand it and this
modest way of living would please more than adul-

336 The Facts About Luther

tery. . .nor are the sayings of others to be cared for,
if our conscience is in order. Thus and thus far
only do we approve of it." *'For what was allowed
in the law of Moses concerning marriage, the gospel
does not revoke or forbid. . . .Your Highness has,
therefore, not only the decision (testimonium) of us
all in case of necessity, but also our foregoing consid-
eration." "That is to say: We allow the marriage,
but at the same time we wish you also to consider
whether it would not be more advisable to give up
all thoughts of the double marriage."

Philip of Hesse, having obtained the sanction he
wanted, cared little for the singular advice of the
reformed theologians. The document granting him
the longed-for dispensation was issued December lo,
1539, and Philip of Hesse launches out with the
approval of the Father of the Reformation and his
associates on his course of concubinage and adultery
a iew months later, early in 1540. Philip's wife, the
daughter of the Elector, gave a written consent to
the ignominious arrangement after the unfaithful
husband ''had clearly proved to her that the double
marriage was not against the laws of God." In return
she was promised that she would always have the
distinction of being the chief wife and only her chil-
dren were to have a right to the honors and political
privileges of the father. In keeping with the whole
distrusting proceedings the Rev. Denis Melander, one
of the eight who signed the letter granting the dispen-
sation, and who had three wives living, officiated at
the shameful and scandalous ceremony of handing
over to Philip his chosen concubine. "Melander," as
Verres remarks, "was the right man in the right place
and he might be depended upon to dwell in the v/edding
sermon on the peace of conscience with which this
matrimonial alliance might be entered into and to
inveigh against the Papal tyranny which had for so
long a time curtailed the carnal freedom of Chris-
tians."

Luther as a Religious Reformer 337

Shortlv after the unholy alliance of Philip with
Margaret Von der Saal, a lady of honor to his sister,
the secret of their union became public and the scandal
occasioned widespread consternation in the newly
formed Lutheran camp. When Melanchthon discov-
ered that the news of the double marriage was spread
broadcast ''he sickened almost to death with remorse"
on account of the sanction he had given to it. The
less impressible Luther, however, was not so easily
overcome as his truculent partner in the loathsome
and illegal transaction. To deny the truth was an
end devoutly to be wished for, as Luther was afraid
of the evil consequences to the public who would come
to learn of the Prince's double marriage. In his
anxiety to prevent the blame from being attached to
his nam^e, he pretended in speech and in letters to
his intimate friends that he knew absolutely nothing
about the whole affair. After consultation with Bucer.
who was the chief agent in the arrangements, and
some other intimates, it took a short time for Luther
to decide that the rumor of the permission given to
Philip to take a second woman and the farcical
marriage should be met with a flat contradiction;
"for," as he said, "a secret yes must remain a public
no and vice versa." (De Wette — Seidemann, VL,
262,.) Then Luther went so far as to declare: "What
would it matter if for the sake of greater good and
of the Christian Church one were to tell a good, down-
right lie?" (Lenz. Brief wechsel, i, 382.)

No doubt Luther was heartily ashamed of grantiner
to Philip the dispensation, which he issued through
human respect and in order to prevent the loss of
a powerful ally in the advancement of the cause
of the new gospel. The Landi^^rave, however,
wanted no 'big lie" to be told about the conces-
sion made in his behalf and he threatened to
expose Luther, who was trying to reverse himself
before the public. "You will have to remem'.c-."
Philip said to Luther, "in case you withdra-.v
approbation that we should be forced to ^-

338 The Facts About Luther

the accusers your written memorial and your signa-
ture to show what (concubinage) has been allowed
to us." This threat threw Luther into a state of
wild anger. *T have this advantage," he said : ''that
your grace and even all devils have to bear witness
and to confess: first, that it was a secret advice;
secondly, that with all solicitude I have begged to
prevent its becoming public; thirdly, that if it comes
to the point, I am sure that not through me it has
been made public. As long as I have these three
things I would not advise the devil himself to start
my pen. . .1 am not so much afraid for myself, for
when it is a question of writing I know how to
wriggle out of the matter and to leave your grace in
it — a thing which I do not mean to do if I can help
it." (De Wette — Seidemann VL, 273.) The unpleasant
matter, which caused widespread scandal, was in a
short time gotten over and peace being re-established
between the unholy combatants, the polygamous Philip
and his vile counselor became the closest friends.

Here we may be permitted to remark that it is a
matter of common knowledge that Luther's relations
with truth, honesty and uprightness were not always
what might be expected from one who claimed his
mouth "was the mouth of Christ." Not to speak of
his general attitude of misrepresentation of everything
Catholic, we have his frank admission of his readi-
ness to make use of what he calls "a. good, downright
lie" "in the complication consequent on Philip's
bigamy and his invitation to the Landgrave to escape
from the dilemma in this way." It is as clear as day-
light that the reformer not only believed in lying
and duplicity, but that he w^as, moreover, prepared
to make any and every sacrifice to uphold the same.
To the specimens of Luther's teaching given above,
we have only, in confirmation of what we allege, to
add one out of many of his celebrated utterances,
viz., "that in order to cheat and to destroy the Papacy,
everything is allowed." (De Wette, i, 478.) If a
Catholic, especially a Jesuit, had ever played fast and

Luther as \ Religtotts Reformer 339

loose with truth as Luther did, what an outcry, and
justly so, there would be! In order to divert atten-
tion from Luther's behavior regarding the obliga-
tion of speaking with truth and honesty, our enemies,
in the hope to fan the passions and hatreds of the
purblind, ignorant, prejudiced classes in the com-
munity, are constantly insinuating and charging that
it was not the Reformer, but the Jesuits, who vvere
the real propagators and defenders of the infamous,
absurd and damnable principle that "the end justifies
the means." That calumny will not down, although
it and a thousand others have time and again been
exploded. However, no scholar to-day, no person of
sane mind, can be found to give the infamous insinua-
tion a moment's attention, for the good and sufficient
reason that the absurd doctrine is not and never was
held by Jesuits or any other Catholics. It is incum-
bent on non-Catholics to name the Jesuit who an-
nounced the despicable principle that "the end justifies
the means." Let them name the time, the place, the
circumstances of such an announcement. If they can
give proof, however meagre, for the alleged charge
sustaining such teaching, the grateful thanks of
every God-fearing man, woman, and child in the
community will be theirs. This, however, no one
can do. Great scholars have imdertaken that task
and found their labors to be in vain. Grown-up men
of intelligence who have made any research on
the subject are no longer frightened by the silly
bugbear invented to deceive and inflame the passions
of the ignorant and dishonest of heart. The malicious
charge, unfounded and incapable of proof, is thrown
out in many quarters merely to hide and save from
view its real author, propagator and defender. Whilst
Luther did not actually formulate the words embodying
the absurd principle, the teaching he announced and
the action he adopted were always and ever in the
direction of the end justifying the means. To Luther
and to no one else may be traced directly and unerr-
ingly the fatherhood of this unsavoiy, unhallowed,

340 The Facts About Luther

unmanty and un-Christian principle. Until non-
Catholic preachers and writers can produce a single
utterance directly or indirectly attached to the Jesuits
of so abominable a nature as we have shown of
Luther, the unanimous verdict of an honest and impar-
tial public will condemn them to silence.

The double marriage of Philip and the relation of
the Reformer to the bigamy of his powerful disciple,
was made the occasion of a remarkable speech in this
country in the House of Representatives January
29, 1900. (Cong. Record, Vol. 33, p. iioi.) Con-
gressman Roberts of Utah, charged with polygamy,
which he could not deny and for which he was not
allowed to take the oath of office, called the attention
of the country to Luther. "Here," he said, "in the
resident portion of this city you erected — May 21,
1884 — a magnificent statue of stern old Martin Luther,
the founder of Protestant Christendom. You hail
him as the apostle of liberty and the inaugurator of
a new and prosperous era of civiHzation for man-
kind, but he himself sanctioned polygamy with which
I am charged. For me you have scorn, for him a
monument." And he cited, as well he might, passages
from Luther's writings to support his views. How
truly v/onderful is the perversity of human nature.
That sarrie man who bears witness in favor of Mor-
monism, which is a new development of private
judgment in religious matters among us in America,
and is in direct hostihty to the groundwork of our
society, and. in the full sense of the word, to our civili-
zation, is cited on occasions and hailed by Lutherans
and other clergymen in our cities in the twentieth
century as the one v/hom the German nation has to
thank for their home life and their ideals of married
life. Let the wives and mothers of America ponder
well the polygamous phase of the Reformation before
they say "Amen" to the unsavory and brazen laudations
of the profligate opponent of Christian marriage, Chris-
tian decency and Christian propriety. Compare the
teachings of Luther on polygamy with those of Joseph

Luther as a Religious Reformer 341

Smith, the Mormon prophet and visionary, and see
their striking similarity. Mormonism in Salt Lake
City, in Utah, which has brought so much disgrace to
the American people, is but a legitimate outgrowth of
Luther and Lutheranism. No wonder that the
wretched institution of divorce came along to degrade
womanhood and revive the usages of barbarism.

Numerous respectable Protestants who know Luther
in his historical setting, admit that he cared little or
nothing for the sacramental character of marriage and
that from the lofty eminence of a once Catholic pulpit,
in the presence of men and women, married and
unmarried, young and old, he positively sanctioned
adultery in the clearest and most unmistakable manner.
It is true that he only allows it in certain given circum-
stances and that he requires the previous approval of
the community, but the stubborn fact remains that
he unhesitatingly sanctioned it.

Karl Hagen, a celebrated Protestant historian, says :
"He (Luther) went so far as to allow one party to
satisfy his propensities out of wedlock that nature
might receive satisfaction. It is quite evident that his
view of matrimony is the same as prevailed in antiquity
and again appeared in the French Revolution." We
beg to note that the high ideal of home life and the
married state that the Reformer so openly and brazenly
taught the German nation and which his imitators so
strongly and lovingly uphold before an unsophisticated
public, is by the Protestant testimony just cited, the
same as existed among the Pagans of old and later
on in the French Revolution, whose forerunner was
Luther.

Returning for a moment to the adulterous marriage
of Prince Philip of Hesse, to which bigamous alliance
Luther gave his sanction, we wish to remind the reader
that according to Kostlin, the most prominent modern
champion of the Reformer, "this double marriage was
not only the greatest scandal, but the greatest blot in
the history of the Reformation and in the life of
Luther." TKostlin, 2, 481, 486.) We may add with

343 The Facts About Luther

Fr. O'Connor, S. J., "that the blot is so great as to
blot out every possibility of one ever looking upon
Luther as a Reformer sanctioned and commissioned by
Almighty God. For marriage is one of the most
important and most essential elements both of the
social and religious order. And God would not allow
a Reformer really chosen by Himself to trample under
foot the law concerning the unity of marriage, which
was promulgated by Christ, the first born Reformer
of the World."

Luther preached and wrote much on the universal
obligation of marriage. He was anxious that all should
enter wedlock, because his low estimate of human
nature led him to believe that "no man or woman could
remain chaste outside of matrimony." Holding such
views it is rather surprising that he waited until his
forty-second year to give practical effect to his teaching
by marrying a nun who broke her enclosure before
breaking her vows. Within the circle of his scheme
of ecclesiastical Reformation, Luther included the
marriage of priests and monks and, as he was one, why
should he not put his own views into practice, join
the crowd of the lawless ones and hold up his infamy
to the public for imitation?

But, if we still have any regard for Divine things,
then we cannot forget that Luther, in order to wed, had
to commit an act of infidelity towards God and dis-
regard his vow of celibacy. No excuse can be offered
to palliate or condone his infidelity.

The sacred obligations of vows are frequently men-
tioned in the Bible and are of Divine institution. These
vows are clothed with a solemn character and are
forever binding, li the God in which Lutherans
profess to believe is not a myth, but a personal God,
to whom we sustain certain relations and with whom
certain relations can be formed, then, as a Protestant
writer puts it : "The idea involved in a vow was that of
a definite contract or covenant entailing a whole series
of after consequences depending upon the condition
being fulfilled, a promise and an acceptance mutually

Luther as a Religious Reformer 343

sealed by which both parties in the covenant were
aftected. Even as God comes forth out of Himself to
make a covenant with His creatures and confirms it by
an oath, so may man go forth from himself, sealing
the covenant by his promise." (Carter, "The Churcli
and the World.")

In the very first epochs of the history of God's
people, vows, free, deliberate promises made to the
Almighty of something of superior excellence, received
a special Divine sanction. Let the maHgners of vows
turn to the twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis and they
will read of Jacob's vow, the first of which a record
has come down to us, while the blessings he afterwards
received, proved that his vow was looked upon with
Divine favor. In the one hundred and thirty-first Psalm
David "vowed a vow" to build a temple to God, and
how acceptable such a vow was to the Divine Majesty
we learn from the seventh chapter of the second Book
of Kings. The tenor of many other passages in the
Old Testament shows that one of the special ways by
which the Jewish people honored and worshipped God
w^as the taking of vows. All along from the beginning,
the taking of vows had received among them, time
and again, the Divine sanction ; to it they had recourse
when pressed by calamity or when demanding par-
ticular favors, or again when striving to make amend ~»
for past obstinacy. They felt, and they knew revela-
tion, that the sacrifice of the will through the obligation
of a solemn promise was most acceptable to the Lord.
Of this they had a suggestive proof also in the exact-
ness with which He required the fulfillment of vov/s.
"When thou hast made a vow to the Lord, thy God,'
it was said in the twenty-third chapter of Deuteronomy,
"thou shall not delay to pay it, because the Lord, thy
God will require it. And if thou delay, it shall be
imputed to thee for a sin."

The practice then of taking vows to God comes down
to man from the tradition of primitive revelation. The
Mosaic dispensation confirmed that practice anew an!
Christ, the Lord, ratified the moral teaching of th ;

344 The Facts About Luther

past, blessing with an especial grace all those who
aspired to follow Him more closely by an entire
offering of themselves tc the Divine goodness by
solemn engagement or vow.

Luther was a member of a Religious Order and a
priest of the Catholic Church. Of hiS own free choice,
for the greater love of Christ and as a means to reach
perfection, he engaged to practise chastity and bound
himself to it by solemn promise. He knew that his
consecration to the religious calling had a deep signifi-
cance, and he knew, moreover, as a professor of
Scripture, it was laid down in Numbers xxx, 2, that
**he who takes a vow shall not break his word; he
shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his
mouth." Having taken the vow to live his life in the
observance of celibacy and having failed to keep the
covenant and contract he solemnly made with God,
his infidehty was nothing short of the commission of a
most grievous sin. And not only was the violation of
his vow an offense against the law of God, but it was
a crime against the laws of the State then existing.
In his day not only the Church but the State also pro-
hibited priests from marrying. The reader is requested
to remember this point in dealing with Luther's marital
venture. To violate law, divine, ecclesiastical and civil,
never disconcerted this instigator of revolution,
upholder of adultery and defender of bigamy, divorce,
and polygamy. It came easy to this 'lawless one" to
offend against legitimate authority, but, in violating
the laws of God and disregarding his vow of chastity
by taking a partner unto himself, he committed an act
of perfidy and his union, even from a legal standpoint,
was no marriage. Katherine Von Bora was only his
companion in sin and the children brought into the
world through the unholy aUiance were illegitimate
children.

This is sad reading, but there is no help for it.
Luther claimed to be a "reformer" and as such he must
be inexorably judged. Think you now that the man
v;ho^e teachings and whose behavior run counter to

Luther as a Religious Reformer 345

the laws of God, of His Church and of the State
deserves for a moment to be considered a "reformer"?
AH law-loving citizens protest against such an outrage.
Luther, of course, has his defenders and they are not
devoid of ways and means to support his evil doings
at all costs. In this specific case they claim, notwith-
standing all Scriptural teaching to the contrary, that
their master had a right to break his vow of celibacy,
because *'it was a sin in him to take such a vow." Mark
the last words and then reflect on how they hold him
up as the great and only impeccable one. But, passing
this over for the moment, we ask who is to be the
judge of his right to break a vow and by what code
of laws was such a vow made to the Lord God not
binding and of perpetual observance?

The reasons that impelled Luther to marry, as
gathered from his writings, are enumerated by Grisar
as follows: i. Because it was necessary to shut the
mouth of those who spoke evil of him on account of
his relations with Bora. 2. Because he was obliged
to take pity on the forsaken nun. 3. Because his father
wished it. 4. Because the Catholics represented matri-
mony as contrary to the Gospel. 5. Because even his
friends laughed at his plan of marrying. 6. Because
the peasants and the priests threatened him with death
and he must therefore defy the errors raised by the
devil. 7. Because God's will was plainly apparent in the
circumstances. Melanchthon's reason, viz., "that man
is impelled to marriage by nature Luther does not
himself bring forward." But whatever may have been
his motives the fact remains that he established himself
with one escaped nun and lived with her as faithfully
as he could. This sacrilegious breaking of vows by
monk and nun cannot be condoned by ingenious excuses
and we object to his defenders calling his alliance with
Katherine "matrimony" and speaking of it as "family
life." This view might be regarded as "slander," as
"papistical malice," because his admirers, closin? their
eves to the facts, do not want the truth to prevail. But
there is no "slander" or "papistical malice" in the

346 The Facts About Luther

statement. Indeed we wish we were not under the
necessity to record it. If there be any blame in pre-
senting this version, remember it does not belong to
us, but to no less an authority than Melanchthon,
Luther's co-laborer and intimate friend. A letter writ-
ten by this "light of the Reformation" to Camerarius
gives all the proof needed to support the contention.
This letter runs as follows:

"Greetings: Since you have probably received
divergent accounts concerning Luther's marriage, I
judge it well to send you my views on his wedding. On
the thirteenth of June, Luther married unexpectedly
Bora without giving any information beforehand to his
friends. In the evening he invited to a dinner the
Pommer(Burgenhagen), Lucas, the painter, and Appel,
and he (Luther) performed the usual ceremony. You
will perhaps be amazed that he can be so heartless in
such times when noble people Hve in trouble, and that
he should lead a more easy life and thus undermine his
usefulness when Germany stands in need of his
judgment and ability. But, I beheve, that it came about
in this manner. He (Luther) is light-minded and
frivolous to the last degree ; the nuns pursued him with
great cunning and drew him on. Perhaps all this
association with them has rendered him effeminate, or
inflamed his passions, noble and high-minded though
he be. He seems after this fashion to have been drawn
into the untimely change in his mode of Hfe. It. is
clear, however, that the gossip concerning his previous
criminal intercourse with her (Bora) was false. Now
the thing is done it is useless to find fault with it, or to
take it amiss, for I believe that nature impels man to
matrimony. Even though this life is low, yet it is holy
and more pleasing to God than the unmarried state.
I am in hopes that he will now lay aside the buffoonery
for which we have so often found fault with him, for
a new life brings new manners, as the proverb runs.
And since I see that Luther is to some extent sad and
troubled about this change in his way of life, I seek
very earnestly to encourage him that he has done

Luther as a Religious Reformlr 347

nothing, which, in my opinion, can be made a subject
of reproach to him. He would, indeed, be a very
godless man who, on account of the mistake of the
doctor, should judge shghtingly of his doctrine.**
(Sessions of the Academy of Munich, 1876, p. 491.
Original in Chigi Library in Rome.)

From this letter it is quite evident that the ideals
and motives which prompted the "Reformer" to marry
were so low, so degrading, so pagan, that they vexed
and worried his friends and intimates, who were by
no means candidates for canonization and were not
proof against the pleadings of the devil's advocate.
Melanchthon acknowledges that Luther's nature and
''former buffoonery" compelled him to this union with
Katherine Von Bora. His remarks in che letter as to
certam rumors no doubt concern suspicions which were
cast upon Luther's relations with Bora before their
marriage. His conduct with Bora previous to wedding
her called forth from both friends and enemies severe
and apparently well-grounded criticism. Luther himself
admits that his marriage was hastened precisely because
of the talk that v/ent the rounds concerning him and
Bora. Burgenhagen said that "evil tales were the
cause of Dr. Martin's becoming a married man so
unexpectedly." And Luther himself wrote to his
friend, Spalatin, that "I have shut the mouth of those
who slandered me and Katherine Bora." It is not
proven that he was openly immoral with her before
marriage, but it is certain that there was so much talk
going on about his intimacy with the ex-nun, that he
thought it advisable to marry her sooner than he had
expected. Melanchthon in his letter to Camerarius
says that he took his Katie in haste and unbeknown
to his friends. Was this union even according to civil
law valid? The jurists of those days and of his own
following did not recognize the marriage as valid.
Even we in "free America" have not progressed as far
as that.

Melanchthon, though he did not object to Luther's
marriage on principle, was nevertheless anything but

348 The Facts About Luther

edified by his action. In his letter to Camerarius, he
states that the "Reformer" was rather sad and
disturbed on account of his entrance upon the new
state of life. Did the voice of conscience denouncing
the unholy alliance have something to do with his
depressed and forlorn condition? We expect his
partisans to reply in the negative, but we fail to see
how any one who had so grossly violated the holy
laws of the religious state and of marriage could
possess peace and rest of soul, unless his heart was
closed to all appeals of Divine suggestion. Petticoat
government in the case of ex-priests never leads to
Paradise. No wonder, as his friend Melanchthon tells
us, he was depressed in spirit and sore of heart.

Heretofore we have seen to some extent how Luther
by precept and example defiled religion, disregarded
morality and appealed to all the evil propensities that
f.esh contains. It is now time to speak of the
shameless brutality and indescribable vulgarity that
habitually in public and private characterized his
utterances, which were of such a low, gross, filthy
nature that they would startle even a pagan. Almost
all of his biographers admit that his language was
invariably coarse and vulgar, imprudent and impetu-
ous, but their description falls short of the reality,
because they are either loath to ofifend their readers
or are afraid to expose the man in his real character.
If the old saying be true that "out of the abundance
of the heart the mouth speaketh," then what must we
think of Luther's heart when from the depth of it he
threw out with its every pulsation such utterances as
to give a veritable nausea to refined and decent man-
hood? This foul-mouthed evangelist has forever on
his tongue the words, "hell, devil, damn, rascal, thief,
fool, ass, villain" and many others that cannot be
repeated to ears polite. Hell and the devil seem to
have ever been uppermost in his thoughts, for there
are no words that occur so frequently in his books.

In 1 541 Luther published a dirty little tirade entitled
"Hans Wurst." It was directed against Henry, Duke

Luther as a Religious Reformer 349

of Bninswick, who had the courage to attack the
reformer and tell him what he thought of his ways
and doings. Though this book is of small compass
the devil's name is mentioned no less than one hundred
and forty-six times. Perhaps the same thing may
be tnie of the words "lie," "Har," etc. Amongst the
names he applies to his adversary we give a few like
"dirty fellow," "the devil of Wolfenbuttel," "a
damned liar and villain," "the donkey of donkeys,"
"that damned Harry," "devil Harry" and "Harry
devil," "whose name stinks like the devil's dirt," "an
arch-assassin and bloodhound whom God has sen-
tenced to the fire of hell and at the mention of whose
name every Christian ought to spit out." He addresses
the Duke as follows: "Thou beautiful image of thy
hellish father," and asks "how could such a block-
head presume to write a book, until you have heard
a . . . . of an old sow. Then you may open your mouth
and say: Thanks to you my beautiful nightingale:
here is a text which is meant for me." He tells
Henry that the Church from which he apostatized is
"the devil's Church," "a whore-church of the devil,"
"an arch-vvhore of the devil," "an infernal school and
a stench den of the devil," "an infernal whore and
the devil's last and most abominable bride," "the
devil's brother." Thus "damned," "devil" and
"whore" are the choice words found in nearly every
line of this mad proJuction and the pity is that he mixes
the sacred Word of God constantly in his revolting
filth. In vileness of language and bitterness of hate
this book has no equal. We defy any Protestant to
read Luther's Hans IVurst without coming to the
conclusion that its author was mentally deranged and
that his coarse invective was the production of a
raving madman. No wonder that Zwingle, notorious,
immoral and corrupt himself, speaking of Luther's
eloquence, says, "the time for the Word of God to
prevail is far off for there is too much heard of
'enthusiast,' 'devil,' 'knave,' 'heretic,' 'murderer,'
*rebel,' 'hypocrite,' and like cussing, dirty words,"

350 The Facts About Luther

It is said by Luther's admirers that his vulgarity
was the fault of his time. Perhaps it was, but may
not the statement be highly exaggerated? To say
that his vulgar speech was the fault of his age seems
to carry with it an insult to the German nation which
was so far advanced in the sixteenth century that it
was well-known for its reverential and respectful use
of language. Even if it were true that the ordinary
classes were less choice in their expressions than in
our days, it is not too much to expect that one who
posed as a ''reformer" should at least use the speech
of an educated gentleman. The excuse alleged for
Luther's abominations will not hold good, for history
tells us that many of his friends and intimates of
those days were shocked and disedified by his constant
use of the most brutal and unseemly language. We
can prove by one quotation, and there are hundreds
to the same effect, that his own contemporary,
Bullinger, the Swiss Reformer, who was neither a
"Papist" nor a "Saint," stood aghast at what he calls
Luther's "muddy and swinish, vulgar and coarse
teachings." "Alas," he says, "it is as clear as day-
light and undeniable that no one has ever written more
vulgarly, more coarsely, more unbecomingly in matters
of faith and Christian chastity and modesty and in all
serious matters than Luther. There are writings by
Luther so muddy, so swinish, Schenhamporish, which
would not be excused if they were written by a shep-
herd of swine and not by a distinguished shepherd of
souls." (Waraften Bekenntnis, fol. lo, p. 95.) With
such testimony and that of many others equally reli-
able, it is useless for the Reformer's apologists, unless
they regard the people as coarse and devoid of intelli-
gence, to consider his abominations and indecencies
of speech as the fault of the times in which he lived.
The truth is, it was the fullness of his heart that was
perpetually bursting through all bonds of conventional
propriety and decency.

The cesspool seems to have been the garden that
furnished his choicest flowers of rhetoric. To be

Luther as a Religious Reformer 351

plainer still, "it is a fact," Fr. Johnston says, "that
Luther's usual talk took its imagery most often from
the privy. In this connection, perhaps, it is significant
that Luther admitted that it was precisely in the
privy of the monastery that he received from God
the revelation of his famous doctrine about justifica-
tion by faith alone. 'By the grace of God, while
thinking on one occasion in this tower over those
words, 'The just man lives by faith alone,' the Holy
Ghost revealed the Scriptures to me in this tower.*
Protestant biographers have naively attempted to
show that this place was not the monastery toilet;
but there is no reasonable doubt."

"This is significant," the same learned writer
continues, "for, as above noted, it is simply amazing
how habitually Luther made use of the imagery sug-
gested by such a place. When he wishes to vomit
his wrath against the Pope or the Cardinals, his
favorite word is that word which indicates the
contents of a privy. I forbear from repeating it.
This particular word (the common popular English
word for evacuations) is constantly on his lips.
Repeatedly he says that if the Pope should send him
a command to appear before him: "I should. . . . upon

his summons." "I sarcastically said that *no

lawyer should speak till he hears a sow.' " The reader
can find plenty of other instances of the use of this
word in Grisar Vol. Ill, 226, 232, 235, 298. Concom-
mitant with the'use of this filthy word, is the use of
another signifying that portion of the human body
which functions the same. Those expressions I
cannot repeat here. See for yourself Grisar, e.g.,
Ill, 229, where he tells the devil to "kiss ."

"The vomits of the human stomach are also a
frequent word wherewith to express his rage against
his enemies. For instance, he says, that the Pope
"vomits" the Cardinals. Again the "monks" are "the
lice placed by the devil on God Almighty's fur coat."
"No sooner do I pass a motion but they smell it at
Rome." Then note this specimen of stable boy's wit

35S The Facts About Luther

apropos of the "Pope-ass" mentioned before. ''When
I (the Pope-ass) bray, hee-haw, hee-haw, or relieve
myself in the way of nature, they must take it all as
articles of faith, i.e. Catholics." That other filthy word
common to people who suit their langxiage to privies
was also constantly on his lips, employed in endless
variations."

"The most amazing aspect of this vulgarity is that
Luther brings the very name of God into conjunction
with just such coarse expressions. Thus in trying to
explain how far God is or is not the author of evil,
he says : "Semei wished to curse and God immediately
directed his curse against David. God says, *Curse
him not and no one else.* Just as if a man wishes to
relieve himself I cannot prevent him, but should he
wish to do so on the table here, then I should object
and tell him to betake himself to the corner.' "

The reader may consult Grisar's monumental work
on Luther if he is anxious to learn more about the
filthy, scandalous, and indecent utterances of this vile
man. To all who have hitherto known little of his
actual obscenity and vulgarity of speech the study
suggested will be not only surprising, but illuminating.
After such an inquiry, no honest man with any preten-
tion to decency would be found in the ranks of those
Vv^ho trample on the truth and insist in spite of such
glaring faults that this man was an "instrument of
God" for the reformation of society.

It is appalling that men should take this filthy talker,
whose hopelessly dirty language indicated the morally
diseased state of his mind, as a guide to expound
Eternal Law and that they should hang upon his
words, held him up for imitation and entrust to him
their salvation. It is pitiable but true, that men have
eyes and see not, they have ears and hear not, they
have hearts and feel not. O! that the eyes and the
ears and the hearts of our separated brethren, if their
faculties are not blunted, would come to recognize the
unspeakable character of the Heresiarch's utterances,
his obscene remarks, his vulgar jokes, his habitual

Luther as a Religious Reformer 35S

nasty references to sexual matters, and discover in time
that this open, brazen and shameless violator of all
conventional decency could not in any sense have been
raised up by the All-Holy God to lead men to the
Kingdom of Heaven.

However outrageous to Christian feeling and ab-
horrent to Christian principle was his habitual filthy
talk, it is far surpassed in vileness and obscenity when
he treats of womanhood, a fertile theme for his
dirty tongue and pen. On this subject he was quite
at his ease and allowed himself singular license. In
the "CoUoquia" no fewer than a hundred pages are
devoted to the fair sex. In this work he surpasses
himself in vulgarity and shows his brutality in inde-
cent references to women. No one could quote him
in this respect without the blood rushing to his head.
His warmest biographers are ashamed of his vulgar
and unmanly references to women. The filthy expres-
sions he recorded in his books were so habitual with
him that he even used them in his own home before
his companion and the children. "Certainly," Fr.
Johnston says, "no Protestant woman can read them
without — I will not say utter shame and womanly
horror — but without indignation that any man, above
all a spiritual leader and cleric at that, could speak
of her sex with such ordinary common familiarity and
coarseness and vulgarity and downright obscenity;
that could joke at her sex in its most sacred and
venerable moral and physical aspects, taking a stable
boy's unclean delight at rude witticisms over poor
woman's physical differentiation from man ; that
could make her very body the inspiration of jokes —
all evincing a cynical and vulgar contempt for woman
as such; that could even have the vuls^arity to lift the
covers of the nuptial bed and disclose its sacred secrets
to the gaze of others. Had any Catholic writer dared
to utter a fraction of what Luther thus wrote and
said, he would be an eternal and shameful reproach to
the Church he so unworthily represented."

To give any idea, even the faintest, of this man's

354 The Facts About Luther

filthy and loathsome language would be impossible
unless one is willing to descend into the gutter and
wade in obscenity. The original sources are extant,
and any one who wishes to consult them may do so
if he is prepared for the shock of his life. Then he
will discover that even the Bullingers and Zwingles
of his own time were weak indeed in their descrip-
tion of Luther's language when they upbraided him
for its "doggishness, dirtiness and lasciviousness." It
is so downright disgusting and hopelessly obscene that
no one can excuse or condone it. As his friend, the
Protestant Kostlin puts it, "his was a vehement,
vulcanlike nature." Just so: but these vehement,
vulcanlike natures are the very ones the Vice Purity
Committees find in plenty in certain quarters of our
modem cities.

Fr. Johnston says : "From a standpoint of morality,
Luther's teachings and practical advice and example
in conversation were infinitely below the moral
standard hitherto held by the very Church he reviled
and constantly below even the standard now generally
accepted by the Protestants themselves. His claims,
therefore, to 'reforming' the Church, are pathetically
weak. Instead of teaching a purer morality he taught
a lower. There is nothing in his teaching, by either
pen or word of mouth, that is calculated to increase
the love of purity, or of even conjugal fidelity, which
in the Catholic Church has developed the fairest
blossoms of maidenly chastity and conjugal love. A
man or woman, who is sexually weak, will look to
him in vain for advice wherewith to increase his or
her strength in resisting the great passion — rather
they will find in his word the opposite. This is no
time to mince words. Therefore, I say deliberately
that from his own words Martin Luther must be
held responsible for bringing into the world the lowest
standard of morality ever advocated by a leader
amongst Christians — so low that I defy a Protestant
to read him, though I would advise no Protestant
woman to do so if she be not ready to read with moral

Luther as a Religious Reformer 355

safety. Both will feel considerably befouled by the
reading."

Neitzsche correctly said of Luther that "he had the
courage of his sensuality." We grant that much, but
it is most painful and decidedly nauseous to deal with
such "courage" and be compelled to descend into the
cesspool of his immoralities, both of teaching and
behavior. The task of dealing with the man who
won for himself the reputation of being the most foul-
mouthed and coarsest of his age is far from being
either agreeable or pleasant. Although we have not
given a fraction of the indecencies that were habitu-
ally on his lips we have furnished sufficient specimens
of his ribaldry and obscene allusions to the unmen-
tionable parts of the human body, its functions and
sexual differentiations, to show that his language,
character and example were not such as one expects
to find in a professed reformer of Christianity. We
would rather not expose to our readers the unspeak-
able vulgarity usually characterising his utterances and
we would much prefer not to repeat for the public
his own confession to the effect that he received his
imaginary revelations in a privy, the imagery of which
colored and tainted too many of his expositions of
those revelations.

But Luther's partisans persist in forcing him upon
public attention and they have only themselves to
blame if, under the lime-light of actual quotations, his
true words and doctrines and character are exposed to
thinking minds, who by the thousands will come to
see him in all his ugliness and deformity, and be
forced to admit on the grounds of modern historical
research that he could not have been directly or indi-
rectly called by God to reform His Church.

In our heart of hearts, we pity the man, regret his
abuse of Divine grace and deplore his life-long antag-
onism to Divine and human law ; but when those who
are ignorant of the facts resurrect and force this man
on public notice in the role of a "reformer," "a
liberator of humanitv," "a model of domestic life"

356 The Facts About Luther

and "an instrument of God for the uplift of society,"
the interests of truth demand that such misrepresen-
tation ought not to go unchallenged, and that the real
portrait of the man as he actually was ought to be
given to the people.

The most scientific Lutheran historians now no
longer make an attempt to deny his many and flagrant
personal shortcomings. It is only those who are
ignorant of the facts : that he proclaimed to the world
that chastity is impossible and a delusion, that licen-
tiousness is permissible, and that the gratification of
the flesh is the aim of man or, those who knowing
them deliberately close their eyes to his sinful teaching
and abominable immoralities, persist in believing that
this moral leper and father of divorce and polygamy
was a man of God chosen to "reform" the Church of
Christ. Such men are not in a frame of mind to
accept the verdict of Luther's contemporaries nor are
they willing to accept the results of the best historical
research supplied by Lutheran authorities, which
overwhelmingly testify to their hero's immorality of
speech and teaching. In their ignoble course they are
unfortunately not so intent on spreading the truth as
they are in strengthening the Lutheran people in their
errors.

The well-known rage and madness against the
Papacy that gradually came upon Luther and
consumed him to his last breath, making his contem-
poraries suspect they had to deal with one possessed
by the devil, has descended to many of his advocates.
Like their master, heedless of right or wrong or danger,
they rave like maniacs against the truth as preached
by Christ's Church to keep their followers in ignorance
and prevent their return to the faith of their fathers,
in which alone can be found rest and peace and eternal
happiness. Their efforts to injure religion, its clergy
and institutions may be "much thought of by fools."
as Melanchthon, Luther's friend, co-laborer, co-re-
former and co-hater of the Papacy once said of his
master's writings, but they cannot and will not prevail

Luther as a Religious Reformer 35?

against the Church which Christ founded and willed
all men to accept under penalty of eternal damnation.
Luther's imitators had better be wise in time and
understand before it is too late that where their master
failed there is no hope of their escape other than by
seeking refuge in the bosom of the Mother Church
which he maligned, abused, and opposed, but which
still continues, as if he never existed, to execute her
heavenly mission and to invite all to be followers of
Him, who alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life."

In this little work we have had no desire to libel
Luther's person, distort his doctrine or misrepresent
his life work. We would willingly allow him to
remain in his grave; but as his friends insist on
resurrecting him we have no alternative but to show
the disciples of a system which is the child born
of a great lie, and nursed and fostered in heresy
and infamy, that Luther by his own works and
teachings was a malicious falsifier of God's truth,
a blasphemer, a libertine, a revolutionist, a hater of
religious vows, a disgrace to the clerical calling, an
enemy of domestic felicity, the father of divorce, the
advocate of polygamy and the propagator of immor-
ality and open licentiousness. These charges are serious,
but we beg to remind you that we have not inter-
preted or edited Luther as he took the liberty to do
with the Scriptures and as his friends did in the case
of Melanchthon's letter to Luther and the modern
issues of "The Table Talk." We have merely quoted
him from reliable sources and made him his own
accuser and judge. The genuineness and authenticity
of his statements on religious and moral questions
can neither be doubted nor refuted. If any surprise
or scandal in exposing his degrading and debasing
sentiments results, the blame rests not with those
who picture the man as he really was, but with Luther
himself and his advocates, who have for the last four
centuries deceived the world by representing him as
a "Reformer," and a "God-inspired man."

Luther himself, be it remembered, felt keenl) the

358 The Facts About Luther

vulnerability of his character as is evident from the
following significant words : 'This is what you must
say; whether Luther is a saint or a scamp does not
matter to me; his doctrine is not his, but Christ's.
Leave the man out of the question but acknowledge
the doctrine." No. We cannot do this. We cannot
leave you out of the matter and accept your doctrine
till you give proof that you are a *'saint" and not a
''scamp. " Your Kostlins and other partisans may
obey your orders, and hold that your "vehement and
vulcanlike nature," as they describe you, was not
incompatible with your role of a religious reformer.
We, however, cannot separate you from your utter-
ances and actions. Your character must be taken into
the count, and as you posed in the role of a reformer,
we expect in all decency, to find you a "saint," and
not a "scamp." Which of these designations fits you
the better? If you had been a man raised up by
God to preach His doctrine and had led a life such
as to prevent the finger of scorn from being raised
against you, why did you complain so bitterly about
the lamentable results of the teaching you wished
acknowledged? As the Hfe of a man is, so is his
teaching and its results. Listen to your own confes-
sion. "God knows," you said, "how painful it is
for us to acknowledge that before the advent of the
gospel everything was peaceful and quietude. Now
all things are in ferment, the whole world agitated
and thrown upside down. When the worldling hears
it, he is scandalized at the disobedience of subjects
against the government, rebellion, war, pestilence, the
destruction of Kingdoms and countries, untold unhap-
piness as the result of the doctrine of the gospel."
(Walch 7, 2556.) Just so. You preached a gospel
of your own manufacture and ignored that of Christ.
What could you expect from your pride and rebellion
but the spread of indifference to religion and an
increase of immorality? Had you been loyal to the
Church of your fathers and been actuated by her
saving principles of reform, the results of your life

Luther as a Religious Reformer 359

work would not have been revolution, rebellion and
war, but rather contentment, peace and true happiness
such as ever follows in the wake of the saints of
God.

Three hundred years go by. It is a long time.
What Luther said of his work in his day, others,
who were loyal to him and acquainted with the
lamentable facts, confirmed and amplified. Hear this
wail of distress from no less a man than the Lutheran
theologian, who, in the early part of the last century,
compiled the reformer's works in five large volumes.
De Wette says: "The dissolution of the Protestant
church is inevitable ; her framework is so thoroughly
rotten that no further patching will avail. The whole
structure of evangelical religion is shattered, and few
look with sympathy on its tottering fall. Within the
compass of a square mile, you hear four, five, six
different gospels. The people, believe me, mark it
well; they speak most contemptuously of theii
teachers, whom they regard either as blockheads or
knaves, in teaching these opposite doctrines. . .grow-
ing immorality, a consequence of contempt for
religion, concurs also as a cause to its deeper downfall.
. . .O Protestantism, has it, then, at last come to this
with thee, that thy disciples protest against all
religion? Facts, which are before the eyes of the
whole world, declare aloud that this signification of
thy name is no idle play upon words."

Nearly a hundred years have rolled bv since the
preceding lines were penned and from that time to
the present, the De Wettes have been telling the
world how Luther's work of reformation has waned
and how it is gradually degenerating into humani-
tarianism. Should you want proof, take up some of
the recent biographies of Luther written by his
admirers and learn the appalling indictment they
frame against the whole religious system of which the
Reformer is the father and defender. In one of these
of recent date, "the author without intending it, makes
it evident that Protestantism is not a religion at all.

360 The Facts About Luther

It has no connection with God Almighty. It does
not make for holiness of life. Its object is not the
service of God. It does not concern itself with the
salvation of souls. Its aim is simply to do good to
one's fellow-man ; not spiritual good, — that is out of its
purview, — but whatever will be conducive to his world-
ly comfort and advancement. Neither the service of
God, nor sanctity of life, nor the salvation of souls
is permitted to stand in the way of its achievements."
Assuredly, if Professor McGiffert's Picture of
Protestantism is correct, "the sooner," that excellent
weekly ''America" says, "thinking people leave it the
better."

In the days of Luther, one of his contemporaries
cried out, '*Do open your eyes and your hearts, you
dear Germans, and use your reason and do not allow
yourselves to be led along by his (Luther's) coarse
Turkish mind. Can the natural mind, say nothing of
the spiritual mind, conceive that Luther had a drop
of honor in him, to say nothing of the fear of God?
God have mercy on such blindness." (Anatomiae
Luther p. i, p. 48 quoted by Jarke.)

That advice is pertinent to our own times. Assuredly
it is blindness not to recognize that Luther's Protes-
tantism, except in America, is mostly a part merely
of the state-machinery of the different countries in
which it exists. Its various creeds are obsolete, effete
and not even the members of the sects which are sup-
posed to hold them, pay the slightest attention to their
declarations; indeed, in greater part, are profoundly
ignorant of what their declarations are. Protestantism,
in brief, has gone on disintegrating and dissolving
until no one knows or can tell precisely what it is.
Only one uniform, constant movement can be dis-
tinguished amidst its continual, whirling eddyings,
and the direction of that movement plainlv is towards
rationalism. The dividing line between Protestantism
and outSDoken rationalism is invisible. There is none.
Men of sense which will you hear, the Church of
Christ, One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, which calls

Luther as a Religious Reformer 861

you to sanctity and uprightness of life, or the hirelings
who, as St. Paul says, "by pleasing speeches and good
wcjrds" "seduce the hearts of the innocent" and "make
dissensions contrary to the doctrine" which the Master
announced to free, vivify, and save the world?

To help all who are anxious to come to a knowledge
of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus and His Church,
it may be well to recall that Luther before he formally
separated himself from obedience to Rome and when
he seemed to abhor such a course, declared "I never
approved of a schism, nor will I approve of it for all
eternity." In a letter written by him in 15 19 to the
then reigning Pontiff Leo X. and quoted in the History
of the Reformation by that partisan Merle D'Aubigne,
he says, "That the Roman Church is more honored
by God than all others is not to be doubted. St.
Peter and St. Paul, forty-six popes, some hundreds
of thousands of martyrs, have laid down their lives
in its communion, having overcome hell and the
world ; so that the eyes of God rest on the Roman
Church with special favor. Though nowadays every-
thing is in a wretched state, it is no ground for
separating from the Church. On the contrary, the
worse things are going, the more should we hold close
to her, for it is not by separating from the Church
we can make her better. ,We must not separate from
God on account of any work of the devil, nor cease
to have fellowship with the children of God who are
still abiding in the pale of Rome on account of the
multitude of the ungodly. There is no sin, no amount
of evil, which should be permitted to dissolve the bond
of charity or break the bond of unity of the body.
For love can do all things and nothing is difficult to
those who are united."

These words have the true ring in them and the
pity is that Luther ever forgot their significance, for
they not only contain a strong and unanswerable testi-
monial in favor of the Catholic Church, but they
define the only position worthy of the true Christian
and sincere reformer intent on the improvement of

862 The Facts About Luther

the unfaithful of Christ's Kingdom on earth. The
Church is the only society upon earth where revolu-
tion is never necessary and reform is always possible.
On the Divine side the Church is always perfect, on
the human side she is a mixture of good and evil.
Reform is always in order, but separation never.
When reform is needed, it must, in order to be blessed,
begin within and not without the Church. Separation
from the Church is not reform. To stand up in
God's Church and to cry out for reform of real abuses
and scandals, fired with genuine zeal and pure love
for the beauty of Christ's spouse, is a noble attitude.
Such zeal, such love, and such interest is capable of
doing all things. Had Martin Luther fought it out
on this line his name would have been handed down
with benediction and praise along with the great
names of Hildebrand, Bernard of Clairvaux,
Borromeo of Milan and Ignatius of Loyola, to all
future generations. But undying loyalty to principle
was not one of Luther's cliaracteristics. His arro-
gance and self-sufficiency so dominated him that from
a refonner he became a revolutionist. Although he
declared that **no cause could become so great as to
excuse sepr-^ation from the Chi^^ch," yet he allowed
himself to be overcome by a radical spirit of free
individualism against the Divine authority of the
spouse of Christ and, under the mere plea of a resus-
citated and purified Gospel, he substituted another
foundation for that which the Master Himself had
placed and led a religious revolution which was
both wrong in principle and wrong in procedure.
The specific work he inaugurated abetted fresh
divisions, created new sects and bred interminable
dissensions to the injury of the Kingdon. of Christ.
Humanity has paid bitterly during the last four hun-
dred years for his rebellion against the Christian
religion. The variations of his system of private
judgment have left the more active intellect of
Protestants everywhere to-day to question not so
much this or that doctrine of Christianity as the why

Luther as a Religious Reformer 363

they are Christians at all. Thus the foundations
designed by Dr. Martin Luther for Christianity after
four hundred long years of experience have crumbled
away almost entirely and nothing remains for intel-
ligent Protestants but the alternative of either entering
the fold of the Catholic Church to remain Christians
or becoming agnostics, which is a mild word for
atheists.

•Luther's work, as the plain historical facts conclu-
sively show, has proven an unsuccessful experiment.

t It was the greatest of blunders. Like all similar
movements in the past started in opposition to the

.' One, true Church of God, it was destined to fall to
pieces and terminate in self-extinction. It had no
internal consistency, or individuality, or soul, to give
it any capacity for permanent propagation. Its teach-
ings were an innovation and, according to their author,
caused an increase of moral corruption such as was
not known since pagan days. Triumph it could not.
Four hundred years have passed since Luther's
Reformation scheme was given to the world and in
spite of all the attacks which the Church has had to
sustain from heresy, she and her Supreme Head
remain. The overruling arm, which in its wondrous
movements confounds the schemes of wicked men,
interfered to preserv^e the religion of Jesus Christ
which though so mysterious in its doctrines and so
opposed to corrupt nature in its morals, remains in
open daylight in every quarter of the world to enlighten
and guide and lift up and heal human nature. In spite
of calumny, in spite of popular outbreaks, in spite of
cruel torments, the Church lives on to unfold to a
wicked world the purity of her morals, the sublimity
of her mysteries, the truth of her doctrines, the majesty
of her worship and the hope of eternal life with which
she inspires her members. No other religion gees
back to Christ ; no other reliction claims Him as
Founder; no other dares to speak in His name and
infallibly to address itself by His Divine authority to
the nations and the peoples of the world. Why?

364 The Facts About Luther

Because no other religion, according to our Lord's
promise, is built upon a rock, on one and the same
faith, on one and the same Church government, on
the same complete unity, with the guarantee of His
abiding presence and enduring protection till the end
of time to safeguard the truths and means which He
gave for the salvation of those who would believe and
follow Him. 'There is not," then, as the Protestant
Macaulay says, "and there never was on this earth
an institution so well deserving examination as the
Catholic Church."

Such an examination can only emphasize the fact
that the world has no need of a new morality or a new
religion. The ideal morality and the true religion
exist. Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the true Leader
in the onward and upward march of humanity, gave
the world His doctrines and His principles of morality
as the standards and ideals of all true human progress
and genuine reformation. These unchangeable and
enduring standards and ideals He communicated and
made over to His Church, which He empowered with
His Divine authority to speak in His name and to
coiivey to all mankind all things vhatsoever He had
commanded till the end of time. In this Divinely
established religion and in no other, men possess the
grace and the force which are ever directed towards
and needed for the reform, the uplift and the sancti-
fication, not only of the individual, but of society at
large. If humanity would be led aright it must be
led by men imbued with the spirit and the teaching
of Christ^s relrgion, men who will embody in their
lives the perfection of virtue, purity and sanctity and
who will by word and example proclaim aloud the old,
Divine, immortal principle which has stood the test of
the ages, that ''righteousness exalteth individuals and
nations."

There is no other way to meet the problems of our
civilization, which are the problems of every other
civilization that has gone before us or will come after
\!?. and to determine man in his actions, in the family.

Luther as a Religious Reformer 365

in business and in his civic relations to government.
It is useless to perfect our institutions unless we seek
first to perfect the members of society. Democracy
will not save men, material prosperity will not save
them, nor will intellectual or artistic progress save
society ; only the effort to "grow in all things like Him
who is Oiur head, Jesus Christ," will save the indi-
vidual and save mankind. Without Him, who "is the
Way, the Truth, and the Life" and without His
religion, which upholds and preaches His standards
and ideals, there can be no rejuvenatiqn and perfec-
tion of either the individual or of society. We may
organizfe, systematize, tabulate and use all the
resources known to the boasted science of the period,
but all will be useless to cope wifh the modern or
the prevailing conception of human nature; the mod-
ern conception of man's origin and destiny; and all
the other fallacies which constitute to-day the very
essence of the spirit of worldly progress. Perfec-
tion based on this conception cannot be acquired.

Human nature was created by God and remains
fixed. God is a necessity for us. Our hearts are
made fctr God and they will not be satisfied until
they rest in the love and knowledge of Him. AH
due and proper perfection begins and ends in Him
to whose image and likeness man is created. Only
those peoples are truly cultured whose impelling
motive is the perfection of the individual based on
this conception ; whereas that people is retrograde in
whom there is wanting a proper understanding of the
dignity of man. Before our days people have turned
their back on God and reverted to the decay and bar-
barism that followed the civilizations of Babylon and
Rome. In an age like this, when everything is called
in question, when the various relations of life are
loose and undefined and when the very air is preg-
nant with hostility to religion we cannot but look
with alarm for the future of the nations if they go
on unchecked in their course of pure naturalism and
secularism, indifiFerent to the light of supernatural

366 The Facts About Luther

faith and engrossed in striving to rise above the natural
by purely natural means.

Unrest, agitation and widespread discontent,
inherited from the religious upheaval of the sixteenth
century, prevail throughout the world. The decadent,
retrogressive and ruinous policies advanced by Martin
Luther and upheld by his followers, distracted society,
divided Christianity and alienated thousands from the
source of all true progress only to lay the foundations
of an atheism which is eating out the very vitals of
all social and Christian life. The world is weary of
all this. It needs social justice, it needs mental repose,
it needs a reform of inorals; in a word, it needs
religion. There can be no real peace, unalloyed
happiness and genuine progress until it is brought
back to the first principles proclaimed by Mother
Church and held throughout the centuries ; principles
which subdued barbarism and tamed savagery; prin-
ciples which renewed the face of the earth and spread
knowledge, civilization and contentment among the
nations of the universe ; principles which gave founda-
tion to human society and established peace and order
by the wholesome doctrine of authority and respect
for the rights of all.

Why not, then, labor to make the world Catholic, so-
ciety Christian and progress permanent by imbuing the
people with the knowledge and the spirit of the Sermon
on the Mount? The task is as noble as it is just; as
great as it is full of reward for time and eternity.
When there shall prevail the tender charity, which
Christ, the Founder of the Church, taught and exem-
plified in His life and which obliges every one to labor
for the happiness of others with as much interest as
for his own, this earth will become a Paradise and
the innumerable woes that now make it desolate —
ambition, avarice, libertinism, war, fraud, pauper-
ism and the other scourges, mainly the effect of
our vices — will in a great measure disappear. "To
restore all things in Christ," as the great apostle Paul
directs, to bring about the grand and sublime order of

Luther as a Religious Reformer 367

things so much desired on all sides and to promote
the welfare of society and our salvation, it is neces-
sary for all to be on guard against the false teacher
and his destructive principles and, come what will, to
remember that the watchword of all who would really
and sincerely bring about reform must ever be the
words of Christ, the true Leader of men: "Seek ye
first the Kingdom of God and His Justice."

May He Who holds in His hand the hearts of all
and Who alone knows the bounds He has assigned
to the rebellious sects and to the afflictions of His
Church, cause all His wanderers soon to return to
His unity ! Separation from His Church means,
logically and practically, no Church. No Church
means no Christianity. No Christianity among intel-
ligent men means no religion at all and no religion
means ruin to the souls of men for time and eternity.

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